114 
fore be said that as a general rule the first plants are conveyed 
to those islands by ocean-currents. Among these plants also 
belongs the cocopalm. For years a controversy has raged round 
the puzzle whether this plant can reach coral-islands by facul- 
ties of its own or that it was taken there by man. No less a 
luminary than our compatriot Hueo pr Vriss ') has repeatedly 
and emphatically argued that the coco-nut was brought to the 
islands by none but human agency, but others among whom — 
Brccari*) arrive at the opposite conclusion. Whilst Beccari 
regards the thick filamentous shell as an adaptation for the 
purpose of floating, pz Vries holds the view that the fibrous 
layer serves to break the shock when the nut drops from a 
height of sixty feet or more. In my opinion the study of Kra- 
katau has established it as a fact that the coconut is capable 
of spreading independently. That is why on finding a coco-— 
palm sprouting in the driftmud (i.e. an accretion of soil con- 
taining pumice-stone, wood and plant-seeds) at only a few. 
yards'distance from the sea, I fixed this fact by means of a 
photo (Plate XXI). 
After certain pioneers borne by the sea have been washed 
ashore on the islands, these are visited by birds, which may 
carry all sorts of seeds attached to their feathers or in their 
intestines. Moreover the winds also bring seeds and spores. 
When Trevs paid his visit to Krakatau, he expected to see, 
as he was led to do by the results of the investigations refer- 
red above, that also here the new flora would start in the first 
place from the seeds of littoral plants cast up there; that these 
penetrated far into the island, and that the other plants would 
not come till later. But he found quite different things. Right 
ue from the beginning a different flora developed in the interior 
_ from that on the coast. The shore displayed the usual pioneers 
PO ees the flora on young coral-islands, Impomoea Pes caprae L., 
| Terminalia Catappa L., Calophyllum Inophyllum L. and other 
well- Peer gies and trees. ‘The island-flora consisted largely 
; Texas ma Florida. ts, blz. 284. 
and dis > ieee ifera. Phil. Journ. of Science, 
