XXIV THE FIJIAN CONIFERS 301 



in support of any continental hypothesis affecting the Western 

 Pacific. 



PODOCARPUS. — In this connection I will mainly depend on 

 Pilger's recent monograph on the Taxacese (heft 18, Engler's Das 

 Pflanzenreich, 1903). More than sixty species are here enumerated, 

 which are distributed in Africa, Asia, Australasia, and South 

 America, With a range that extends north to Japan and south to 

 Southern Chile in latitude 48°, this genus attains its greatest 

 development in respect of species in Malaya, in the region com- 

 prised by Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, in South 

 America, and in Africa. Eastward of New Caledonia it is found 

 in Fiji and in Tonga, but not in Samoa, and it is altogether absent 

 from the Tahitian region as well as from Hawaii. Of the four 

 species accredited by Seemann to Fiji, two are enumerated by 

 Pilger, namely, P. afifinis and P. vitiensis. The first-named, 

 according to Stapf, is allied to P. bracteata, which occurs on the 

 upper slopes of Kinabalu, in Borneo, and is distributed not only 

 over Malaya, but occurs in Japan and in the Himalayas. The 

 Tongan species, P. elatus, is, according to Hemsley, found in East 

 Australia. 



This Tongan tree is suggestive of bird-agency in the dispersal 

 of the genus, and the same may be said of the occurrence of 

 another species, P. ferrugineus, found in both New Caledonia and 

 New Zealand. Since the seeds of the genus possess an outer 

 fleshy and an inner bony covering, they would appear to be well 

 fitted both to attract and to be dispersed by birds. In fact, we 

 learn from Sir W. Buller that the New Zealand fruit-pigeon feeds 

 on the seeds of the " matai " tree (Podocarpus spicata) and of the 

 " kahikatea " (P. dacrydioides), and no doubt to the agency of 

 frugivorous birds we can attribute the presence of the genus in 

 Fiji and Tonga. Yet it is strange that bird-agency should have 

 failed both with Tahiti and Hawaii. In point of size the seeds, 

 which range from one-quarter to an inch across, present no 

 great difficulty, and one would have thought that the birds that 

 carried the " stones " of Elaeocarpus to Hawaii could have also 

 carried the seeds of Podocarpus. 



It is, however, necessary to remember, in dealing with a genus 

 that has a wide distribution both in time and space, that specific 

 affinities may have a very different significance with the Gym- 

 nosperms than with most other flowering plants. When Hemsley 

 remarks (Jntrod. Chall. Bot. p. 56) that the New Zealand Podo- 



