272 H. B. GUPPY, M.B., 
first glance to compose the whole wood. The Dutch officer, 
however, was engaged in making a commercial rather than 
a scientific report to the Netherland Indian Government,* 
whilst Mr. Keating was content with giving a general de- 
scription to Mr. Holman, the blind traveller. However, 
there can be no doubt that in their time, and in that of 
Darwin, the cocoa-nut palms formed the conspicuous vegeta- 
tion. Van der Jagt, however, gives the native Malay names 
and the uses of a few trees on the islands, names and uses 
which they still retam, and from his report as well as from 
the description of Keating, and from a paper on these islands, 
apparently by Mr. J. C. Ross (Gleanings in Science, Calcutta, 
1830), I gather that the first residents found several other 
trees on the atoll besides the cocoa-nut palm. 
The plants collected by Darwin in 1836, and enumerated 
by Henslow in the Annals of Natural History (vol. 1, p. 337, 
1838), are given by Forbes in his Hastern Archipelago, where 
they are supplemented by his own additions in 1878, which 
included, however, numerous plants that had been introduced 
in the interval. Darwin, in 1836, observed five or six trees 
besides the cocoa-nut palms; the two, which he said he did 
not obtain specimens from, were probably Pisonia (inermis ?), 
as pointed out by Forbes, and Hernandia peltata. Amongst 
my collections in 1888 the following, as identified at Kew, 
have not hitherto been recorded from these islands :— 
Calophyllum inophyllum, Linn. Keeling Atoll. 
Thespesia populnea, Corr. Keeling Atoll. 
Triumfetta subpalmata, Solan’ er. Keeling Atoll. 
Suriana maritima, Linn. Keeling Atoll. 
Erythrina indica, Lamk. Keeling Atoll (perhaps intro- 
duced), 
Canavalia obtusifolia, D.C. North Keeling Island. 
Canavalia, sp. 
Terminalia Catappa, Linn, Keeling Atoll and North Keeling 
Island. 
Barringtonia speciosa, Forst. Keeling Atoll. 
Sesuvium Portulacastrum, Linn. North Keeling Island. 
Ipomea grandiflora, Lamk. Keeling Atoll. 
Ipomea biloba, Forsk (pes capre, Roth). Keeling Atoll. 
Premna obtusifolia, R.Br. North Keeling Island. 
* The annual yield of cocoa-nuts for all the islands of Keeling Atoll 
was estimated by Van der Jagt in 1829 at 431,000. 
