136 H. B. GDPPY, M.B., ON 



would be necessary to attempt some distinction between the 

 parts man and the other natural agents have taken in 

 stocking this region with its plants ; and this would involve 

 us in discussions as to the geographical distribution, the 

 uses, and the antiquity of the plants concerned. Coming to 

 the plant-names, we would deal first with those of individual 

 plants, making each plant tell its own story anent the 

 Polynesians in the light of varied general, historical and 

 botanical data. Then we would proceed to compare the 

 vernacular names of the different sub-regions with the object 

 of ascertaining the direction of the stream of migration over 

 this large area. All these are very large questions, and it 

 would be barely possible to do them justice, even in a single 

 volume, and much less in an ordinary paper. It will there- 

 fore be only practicable to deal with the subject in an 

 illustrative fashion ; but even then the matter is not free 

 from difficulty, as it is not easy to select the facts that are at 

 once the most pithy and the most weighty from the abun- 

 dant materials that I have been gathering for years. 



When we come to consider whether the plant-names of 

 the Polynesians can afford any indications of the unknown 

 history of this race, either by supplying us with the means 

 of determining the locality of their ancient home or of 

 following the line of their migration, we are led to ask 

 whether they can be fitly employed for this purpose. We 

 have only to turn to the works of Hehn, Kern, Schrader, 

 and other philologists, to learn that when subjected to the 

 test of strict linguistic principles they can be thus used. On 

 the other hand, amongst botanists, who look to a vernacular 

 name for information, not as to the home of a people but of 

 a plant, there is much difference of opinion as to their value 

 on account of the frequent confusion of species. This is a 

 real danger to the botanist. The ethnologist, however, has 

 to recognise the fact that all the world over the history of 

 plant-nomenclature has been too often a story of fancied 

 resemblance and occasionally of grotesque imagination. 

 Botanical classification has often no place in vernacular 

 nomenclature, and through some resemblance in habit or in 

 utility plants are often placed together that to the botanist 

 lie far apart. Thus to take an example ; amongst the food- 

 plants of primitive man in these regions were doubtless Tacca 

 pinnatijida and Amorphophallus campanulahis, which bear 

 the same generic name of " Takka " in Malay. This is 

 occasionally repeated in Polynesia ; and in Fiji, " Ndainga," 



