BOTANY OF TEE LA CCA DIVES. 277 



blade at the north-east corner. The barrier reef is high and 

 strongly marked on the north, north-east and more than half the 

 eastern side, where, Mr. Hume thinks, there are some points bare 

 at high water ; elsewhere it is much lower, a considerable portion 

 being covered even at low tide, and being pierced by deep ship- 

 channels in several places.* Mr. Hume also mentions a sandbank 

 which is devoid of vegetation ; this is probably the Akati Feti 

 (No. 17) of Wood's list. Mr. Hume landed on Bangaro (Bangaram, 

 Wood) which he describes as " a mass of vegetation down to the 

 " water's edge, dense with cocoanuts above and screw pines below," 

 the undergrowth being also very dense ; the plants growing with 

 a luxuriance that '^contrasted strongly with the generally-stunted 

 "growth of the same species on Betrapar." The plants that 

 Mr. Hume collected were mainly those he had not already obtained 

 or noted in Bitrapar ; the specimens belong to 10 species, all save 

 one of which {8etaria verticillata) might have been introduced by the 

 sea. The interior of the island was found to be an almost impene- 

 trable thicket, largely composed of Caesaljnnia Bonducella bushes.f 

 This account of the zone of coco-nuts points clearly to their having 

 been here introduced by the sea. 



Tangaro (Tenakerry, Wood), the other minor island on the reef, 

 was also visited by Mr. Hume, who describes it as less wooded than 

 Bangaro ; he did not collect any specimens. According to Lieut. 

 Wood's table this, like the last, is visited on account of its 

 coconuts, which is doubtless correct. 



On Akati itself Mr. Hume was unable to land, but it was visited in 

 1891 by Dr. Alcockand Mr. Fleming. The plants collected — which 

 include 32 weeds of cultivation or garden-escapes, and 13 sea-shore 

 species, with only one plant {Tylophora asthmatica) that may be a 

 wind-introduced species — show that there is no true jungle, but that 

 the whole of the island is under cultivation. Mr. Fleming's list of 

 cultivated species includes Calophyllum inophyllum (of which there 

 is but one tree, planted) ; Thespesia populnea (planted, but also 

 occurring wild); Seshania grandiflora (planted to support the Pepper- 



* Hume, " Stray Feathers," vol. iv., 45l. 

 t Hume, " Stray Feathers," vol. iv., 452. 



