ON THE DISPERSAL OF PLANTS. 287 
EXPERIMENTS ON THE FLOTATION AND SUBSEQUENT GERMINATION OF 
SOME OF THE Common FRUITS AND SEEDS OF THE PLANTS OF 
THE KeeninG IsuANps. 
+g Sown out at Germinated 
Name. i tha Buitenzorg on Noy. 11th, | up to Feb. 20th, 
3 1888. 1889. 
Cordia subcordata ..| 40 days..| 7 fruits .. vd we 10 seeds. 
Hernandia peltata . | 42 ,, ..| 5 or & seeds : Dah 
Guettarda speciosa ..| 50 ,, ..| 2fruits .. ws ate Wise 
Thespesia populnea ..| 40 ,, ..| 7 or 8 seeds lio 
Scevola Kenigii Ole ee le sue PULLbeS B55 
Morinda citrifolia ..| 53 ,, ..| 10 seeds .. DT ate 
Tournefortia argentea | 40 ,, gee te Pe hepa 
Hibiscus tiliaceus ..| 40 ,, ..| 6 ,, are oh OF 
Ipomea grandiflora ..| 42 ,, ..| 1 ,, A Os8 
It is a noteworthy circumstance, not brought out in the 
above table of results, that the seeds most ready to germi- 
nate during the first month in the ground were those of 
Scevola Kenigti, Tournefortia argentea, and Cordia subcordata, 
of which the two first are the commonest trees and shrubs 
on the weather coasts bordering the beaches, whilst the last 
was a few years ago one of the most frequent trees border- 
ing the lagoon. The seeds of Morinda citrifolia mostly 
germinated during the second month in the ground. Those 
of Thespesia populnea and Hernandia peltata are slow to 
germinate, whilst none of the seeds of Mibiscus tiliaceus had 
germinated up to February 20th. 
It will have been noticed that I was indebted to Dr. Treub, 
the Director of the famous Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg, 
for the important completion of my experiments on the 
flotation of the Keeling seeds and fruits. It will, however, 
have been observed that the seeds and seed-vessels of several 
well-known littoral trees of coral islands are not repre- 
sented in the list. The fact is, that believing that those of 
Barringtonia speciosa, Calophyllum inophyllum, &c., had often 
demonstrated their powers to cross an ocean and still germi- 
nate, I preferred to select some of those seeds and seed-vessels 
concerning which our evidence had been, if not less certain, 
at least not so familiarly demonstrated. The results, to use 
the words of Dr. Treub, have been very satisfactory. 
* The numbers of days here given refer to the length of the ex- 
periment, and not to the time during which these seeds can float in 
sea-water, which is probably in nearly all the cases considerably longer 
than the duration of the experiment. 
