3'84< D. Prain — The Vegetation of the Goco Group. [No. 4, 



Island, Rutland Island and Batti Malv, and is included in tlie list without 

 any feeling of doubt in the mind of the writer. On the other hand, in- 

 deed, it is with some diffidence that another species, Ipomcea Turpethum, 

 is omitted. All three species of Vitex given are " littoral," but while there 

 seems no doubt that Vttex Negundo is sea-introduced, it is on the whole 

 more probable that the others are introductions by fruit-eating birds. 

 Macaranga Tanarius is also a species that from its habitat the writer has 

 no hesitation in considering a sea-introduced species ; another that he 

 would have wished to include is Blachia andamanica which occurs on 

 the coast with Desinodium umhellatum, Pluchea indica and other un- 

 equivoca'ly littoral species. Moreover there are several of these shrubby 

 and arboreous Euphorbiacece on Narcondam ; their presence there indicates 

 that some mode of introduction for species of this order must be possible. 

 In the absence, however, of direct experiment with their seeds the others 

 have been left to swell, probably unduly, the list of "remanent" 

 species. Tacca pinnatifida, which is an inland as well as a coast species, 

 may be bird-introduced, for its seeds are embedded in a sweet jaulp. 

 But though a species of ant is very fond of this fruit and scoops out 

 all the ripe pulp, leaving the seeds bare bat uninjured in an other- 

 wise empty bag, no bird, so far as the writer could see, appears 

 to eat them. The two Visonias, one a climber, the other a tree, are 

 both " littoral " and so may well be sea-introduced, but as both 

 have peculiar fruits with glutinous lines along their sides they may 

 equally well be bird-introduced species. The sticky lines along the 

 angles of the fruits of Fisonia excelsa in particular have all the tenacity 

 of bird-lime. As this species occurs some way inland as well as along 

 the coast there is little doubt that, even if sea-introdu-ced, its further 

 dispersal is assisted by ground-feeding birds or small mammals. The 

 fruits of two species of Dipterocarpiis were seen in the " drifts," but the 

 writer has no hesitation, from what is known regarding the delicacy of 

 the seeds in this order and the rapidity with which their power of 

 germinating is lost, in excluding both from the list. From what has 

 already been said regarding "civilized" species it will be seen that 

 though Gocos nucifera is undoubtedly capable of being introduced by 

 the sea, it is probably not to this agency that its presence in these 

 islands is due. Garyota sobolifera, however, which is throughout the 

 whole Andaman group a very common species, both on flat and on 

 rising ground, and which is as common on Narcondam as in the Cocos, 

 is probably a sea-introduced species. 



Peristrophe acuminata is another species that affects only the locali- 

 ties in which Desmodium polycarpum and its companions are found and 

 ought probably to be included among the littoral species ; in the absence 



