372 D. Prain — The Vegetation of the Coco Group. [No. 4, 



* Panicum ciliare. Great Coco ; near south end of island 



beside some shelter huts used by 

 coco-nut collectors. 

 Panicum colonum. Both islands, in the clearings and also 



at south end of Great Coco near the 

 shelter huts. 



* Panicum Helopus. Table Island, in the clearing. 



35. * Eleusine indica. Table Island, clearing, common ; Great 



Coco, rare in the clearing, also a few 

 tufts among droppings of cattle on 

 a bare hill at south-west corner of 

 the island. 



* Eleusine regyptiaca. Table Island ; lighthouse clearing, still 



rai'e. [All the Cyperaceoe and Ora- 

 mineoe may have been introduced by 

 birds.] 

 Of the above, nineteen ai'e species which are, or may be, cultivated 

 for economic or aesthetic reasons — the economic plants being Hibiscus 

 Sahdarifa (the Rozelle), Hibiscits Ahelmoschus fthe Musk-mallow), Morin- 

 ga pterygosperma (the Horse-Radish tree), Phaseohis sp., Tamarindus 

 indica (the Tamarind), Garica Papaya (the Papaw), Ipomoea Batatas 

 (the Sweet- Potato), Solanum Melongena (the Bringal), Capsicum mini- 

 mum (the Bird's-Eye Chillee), Mtisa sapientum (the Plantain), Cocos 

 nucifera (the Coco-nut), Panicum ciliare, colonum and Helopus (three 

 wild fodder-millets). Ten of these have undoubtedly been intentionally 

 introduced — one (the Tamarind) certainly has not, and the three fodder 

 grasses may have come as weeds, or equally probably, may have been 

 introduced by grain-eating birds. The Eesthetic plants are Nymphoea rubra, 

 Grotalaria sericea, Ipomcua coccinea, Celosia cristata, and Gomphrena glo- 

 bosa. Grotalaria sericea may have been involuntarily introduced, the 

 others almost certainly have been brought intentionally. The other 

 seventeen are, or may be, weeds, but there is every probability that five 

 of them, Urena lobata, Vernonia cinerea, Adenostemma visocosuvi, Aniso- 

 tneles ovata, and Boerhaavia repens do not owe their presence here to 

 human agency. 



Of the introduced economic species three are evidently unfitted to 

 survive under the conditions to which, when abandoned, t\\ej are exposed. 

 The Rozelle succumbs to climatic infiuences, the Ssveet- Potato and the 

 Plantain are destroyed by animals. On the other hand the propagation 

 of two of these species — the Papaya and the Bird's-Eye Chillee — is re- 

 mai-kable both for its extent and rapidity, and for the fact that the 

 flavour and pungency of the fruit of these species i-emains undimi- 

 nished. 



