404 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



Rhaphidophora (Araceae) 



This genus of climbing aroids, which gives a character to the 

 forests of I ndo- Malaya as well as to those of the Western Pacific, 

 is represented in the New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga, and Rarotonga 

 by a variety of the widely spread R. pertusa that ranges over Indo- 

 Malaya and Eastern Australia. The ripe berries would readily 

 attract birds ; and the seeds, 4*5 millimetres long in the case of a 

 Fijian plant, appear hard enough to pass unharmed through a bird's 

 digestive canal. We seem here to have evidence of a somewhat 

 recent connection between Indo-Malaya and Polynesia through 

 the agency of frugivorous birds. That the genus has been long 

 established in Polynesia is, however, indicated by the occurrence 

 there of a species seemingly peculiar to Fiji. We are disappointed 

 that in Engler's recent contribution to the Pflanzenreidi (in his 

 volume on the Araceae- Pothoidea^) he has not been able to include 

 this genus in the field of his studies. 



Gnetum (Gnetacese) 



This Gymnospermous genus, which is found in the warm regions 

 both of the Old and the New World, is represented in Fiji by a 

 Malayan species, Gnetum gnemon, which exists also in the Solomon 

 group with other species of the genus (Guppy's Solomon Islafids, pp. 

 288, 301). I was familiar with this species in both Fiji and the 

 Solomon group ; but in the first-named locality it is seemingly 

 restricted to the borders of Wainunu Bay on the south side of Vanua 

 Levu, where Dr. Harvey first found it. It grows there abundantly 

 in young wood. 



It seems almost idle to discuss the mode of dispersal of a genus 

 that is placed in a class apart with the African Welwitschia and 

 the European Ephedra, possessing with them a history of which 

 we know nothing. Yet it is ranked by Mr. Hemsley amongst 

 those genera that are dispersed in Polynesia by birds, and he 

 produces better evidence in support of this view than we possess 

 for many other plants. Thus a fruit of a species of Gnetum, 

 perhaps G. gnemon, has been found in a New Guinea fruit-pigeon ; 

 and the fruits of two species of the genus were found in the crops 

 of fruit-pigeons shot by Mr. Moseley in the Admiralty Islands 

 {Bot. Chall. Exped., Introd. 46 ; iv, 308). The red drupes of 

 Gnetum gnemon of Fiji would readily attract birds, and their 

 nut-like stones, about 8 millimetres long, are well suited for this 



