TORREYA 



March, 1917. 

 Vol. 17 No. 3 



THE GENUS ARTOCARPUS IN THE HAWAHAN ISLANDS 



By Vaughan MacCaughey. 



The breadfruit is beyond question one of the most famous and 

 valuable trees of the Pacific. For thousands of years it has been 

 intimately associated with the peoples of Indo-Malaysia and 

 Polynesia. On many of the tiny island groups in the South 

 Pacific it has been a food-plant of supreme importance since time 

 immemorial. In the Hawaiian Archipelago, whither it was 

 brought by the early Polynesians, it was highly prized by the 

 natives, and carefulty cultivated. It has played an important 

 role in the economy of all the peoples of the central Pacific. 



There seems to be at present, in the literature, no comprehen- 

 sive account of the breadfruit in the Pacific; the references are 

 scattering and for the most part difficult of access; and it is the 

 purpose of the present paper to give a salient account of this 

 important tree and its congeners, particularly as they occur in 

 the Hawaiian Archipelago. It is significant that nowhere in the 

 literature is there a complete description of the tree and its parts; 

 the extant characterizations, both botanical and non-technical, 

 are noticeably fragmentary and unsatisfactory. The present 

 paper undertakes a reasonably complete description of the tree 

 and its relations to human welfare. 



The genus Artocarpics* — Greek for bread-fruit — is moraceous, 

 and comprises about forty species, chiefly trees and shrubs, 

 indigenous to the Indo-Malayan region. A number of the 

 trees are locally valuable for timber; however, the two species 



[No. 2, Vol. 17, of ToRREYA, Comprising pp. 21-32, was issued 8 March 1917.J 

 * A. D. E. Elmer, Synopsis of Artocarpus, Leaflet Philipp. Botany, 2. 1909 

 see also Engler and Prantl. 



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