XXIII THE HAWAIIAN MOUNTAIN-FLORA 281 



A few words on the station and habit of Vaccinium in the 

 Pacific islands may be here of interest. In Hawaii there are, 

 according to Hillebrand, two species, a high-level form, V. reticu- 

 latum, occurring at elevations of 4,000 to 8,000 feet, and a low-level 

 form, V. penduliflorum., ranging between 1,000 and 4,000 feet. I 

 may, however, remark that the last species occasionally came under 

 my notice at elevations of 6,000 to 7,000 feet. This species 

 exhibits much variation, and Gray, Wawra, and other botanists 

 have evidently not been always able to distinguish between the two 

 species in their varying forms. It is not only distinguished from 

 the high-level species by its lower station, but also by its epiphytic 

 habit, a circumstance that, as pointed out below, may explain some 

 of the differences, since such a habit is bound up with the difference 

 in station. It seems, therefore, safer to regard them as station 

 forms of one species which is closely allied to V. cereum, the 

 species of the South Pacific, an inference which, if well founded, 

 would make highly probable the view that there has been a single 

 polymorphous Pacific species. ... In Tahiti, as we learn from 

 Nadeaud, V. cereum occurs on the mountain-tops at altitudes 

 exceeding 800 metres (2,600 feet). In Rarotonga, according to 

 Cheeseman, it is found on the summits of most of the higher 

 hills extending almost to the summit of the island, 2,250 feet above 

 the sea. The Samoan species, V. antipodum of Reinecke, which 

 that botanist considers as probably one with V. whitmei, a Poly- 

 nesian (Samoa ?) species originally described by Baron F. von 

 Muller, grows in the central mountains of Savaii at an elevation of 

 1,500 metres (4,920 feet). 



These Pacific species of Vaccinium, as on tropical mountains of 

 the continents, occasionally assume an epiphytic habit, and it is 

 here, as above observed, that lies one of the distinctions between 

 the Hawaiian species. V. penduliflorum, the low-level form, occurs 

 typically in the forests, where, according to Hillebrand, it grows on 

 the trunks of old trees. The trees, however, may be quite in their 

 prime, and I have observed it growing in the fork of the trunk of 

 an Olapa tree (Cheirodendron gaudichaudii). It is in this connec- 

 tion of significance to notice that a variety found in open glades 

 and on grassy slopes is described by Hillebrand as terrestrial in 

 habit. The other high-level form, V. reticulatum, grows gregariously 

 on open ground, and is typically terrestrial in its habit. The 

 Samoan species, as we learn from Reinecke, grows on trees, as on 

 the branches of Gardenia. The epiphytic habit of species of 

 Vaccinium is especially discussed by Schimper in the case of plants 



