8 TIMEHRI. 
two fruit in February or March. In this as in many 
other trees we have signs of transition between one 
cycle and two. The Revd. J. L. GREEN states that in 
those Polynesian islands which are situated near the 
equator the bread-fruit produces two crops a year as it 
does in this colony, but outside the tropics only one, 
When investigating imported trees, allowances will have 
to be made for those which come from countries where 
there is a cold season; and in such cases heredity must 
be taken into account as well as the change of environ- 
ment. 
The so-called gum tree (Sapium aucuparium) is a 
conspicuous exception to the general rule. Not only is 
it content with one cycle a year but its autumn lasts 
during the whole of the long dry season. The leaves 
fall off very gradually until it is almost or quite bare, and 
then the leaf buds develop in the course of several weeks, 
followed by the flowers and fruit. Altogether the whole 
cycle is gone through in a most deliberate manner, quite | 
unlike the trees of equatorial regions. Whether it can 
afford to go so slowly in the forest, we cannot say, but 
it is possible that it grows on sand reefs where the long 
dry season prevents it being handicapped by a host of 
rivals when the twigs are bare. 
This reminds us that the forest trees cannot afford to 
remain bare for any length of time, Scattered beneath 
them are thousands of seeds, only waiting for a break in 
the dense canopy above to sprout and become their 
rivals. With a few months sunlight a dense jungle 
would spring up, and even if this were smothered when 
the tree put on its new vesture, the amount of plant food 
used up by the crowd would seriously weaken it. It has 
