XXIV THE FIJIAN CONIFERS 299 



fruits and look for a reply, we find in the first place that they are 

 never to be noticed either whole or in part in the floating drift of 

 sea or river, or amongst the stranded materials of the beaches. 

 This is at once explained when we ascertain that the fresh cones 

 sink in the river-water, and thus could never reach the coast in their 

 entire condition. Nor could they do so in fragments, since the 

 detached cone falls to pieces on the ground and ^he separate scales 

 and seeds sink at once or float only for a few hours. In order to 

 test the buoyancy of a cone after drying, it is necessary to bind it 

 round with string to keep it from breaking down. One such fruit, 

 after being kept for ten days, was placed in sea-water, where it 

 floated heavily for eleven days and then sank. This is, of course, a 

 most unnatural experiment, but it was well to have ciirried it 

 out. That the entire fruit could never be transported by water is 

 indirectly implied by Kirk respecting the fruit of Dammara 

 australis, the Kauri Pine of New Zealand. In this case, when the 

 fruit reaches maturity the scales, he remarks, fall away from the 

 woody axis of the cone and the seeds are freed. 



The fleshy, unprotected seeds, which, as above noted, possess 

 little or no floating power, could scarcely withstand the injurious 

 effect of sea-water ; and they are absolutely unfitted for any known 

 mode of dispersal by birds. It is observed by Kirk that the seeds 

 of the New Zealand tree are widely spread by winds. But this 

 could only avail them for local dispersion, and they appear ill-suited 

 for being transported for more than a few paces. The seeds are 

 winged, and are in form a little like the samara of the Maple 

 (Acer) ; but they have not the same protective coverings, the wing 

 being, however, only a little more than half the length of the 

 entire seed. Those of both Dammara australis and D. vitiensis are 

 about' two-thirds of an inch in length, and are heavy-looking ; and 

 the agency of the wind could never be invoked except for local 

 dispersion. 



Looking at these results, the cones of Dammara may be re- 

 garded as most unsuited for any of the ordinary means of dispersal 

 over an ocean except through the agency of man. There is, how- 

 ever, no necessity to introduce man's aid here, unless the gum or 

 resin which the Fijian burns in his torches and employs as a glaze 

 for his pottery gave his ancestors an object in carrying the cones 

 with them in their migrations. But in that case the same argument 

 would have to be applied to all partially useful plants, and much of 

 the Fijian flora would lose its indigenous reputation. The endemic 

 character of the Fijian species also militates against such a view. 



