XXIII THE HAWAIIAN MOUNTAIN-FLORA 277 



of curiosity. I cannot myself doubt that this is the explanation of 

 the occurrence of the representatives of the genus that now thrive 

 as endemic species on the higher slopes of the Hawaiian mountains. 

 This method of dispersal for Plantago is recognised by recent 

 writers on the subject of seed-dispersal. (In a paper in Science 

 Gossip for September, 1 894, 1 dealt with the " mucous adhesiveness " 

 of such seeds as a factor in dispersal. The subject had previously 

 been discussed by Kerner in one of the earlier volumes of his 

 Pflansenleben ; and I have summed up some of the results in Note 

 43 of the present volume.) My readers can readily ascertain by a 

 simple experiment that a bird pecking the fruit-spikes in wet 

 weather would often carry away some of the sticky seeds in its 

 plumage. Several years ago, when I was endeavouring to examine 

 the condition of these seeds in the droppings of a canary, my 

 efforts were defeated by the bird itself, since, in spite of all my care, 

 some seeds and capsules were always carried by the bird on its 

 feathers into the clean cage reserved for the experiment. 



The plants of these mountain genera possessing dry seeds or 

 fruits neither very large nor very minute and suitable for bird-food 

 are Ranunculus, Viola, Vicia, Sophora, Artemisia, Sisyrinchium, six 

 in all, or 24 per cent, of the total. On the probable method of 

 transport of the ancestors of these endemic species the following 

 remarks may be made. With regard to Ranunculus, some authors 

 like C. M. Weed (^Seed-Travellers, p. 48, Boston, 1899) perceive in 

 the curved or hooked beaks of the achenes a means of attaching 

 the fruit to plumage. This no doubt applies to some species, and 

 it is advocated by Ekstam for some of the plants of the Nova 

 Zembla flora. There are others to which this explanation would 

 not be applicable, and the achenes of the Hawaiian species do not 

 appear to be specially fitted for this mode of transport. I have 

 found the achenes of Ranunculus frequently in the stomachs of 

 birds in England, in partridges frequently, and in wild ducks at 

 times. Those of certain species that possess buoyancy are 

 common in the floating seed-drift of rivers, as of the Thames 

 {Joiirn. Linn. Soc. Bot., xxix. 333), and they would probably in 

 this way be often swallowed by waterfowl, 



I have but few data directly relating to the dispersal of seeds 

 of Viola by birds. From the frequent occurrence of species in 

 alpine floras, as in the Caucasus, the Great Atlas, in the mountains 

 of Equatorial Africa, in Madagascar, &c., it may be inferred that 

 birds transport the seeds between the higher levels of many 

 continental ranges in tropical regions and to the mountain-slopes 



