On the Botany of Tahiti. Ixxv 
all four species of Cyathea, the commonest being the large hairy species, 
one of the handsomest I know, OpAioglossum sp. and O. pendulum, an 
excessively rare plant,* two or three Acrostichums, a Botrychium, two beautiful 
epiphytal Zycopodiwms, and a most exquisite terrestrial flat-branched species 
resembling a fern in appearance, two species of Angiopteris, the gigantic sweet- 
scented species, nai or nahi of the natives, of which there is here the largest 
specimen Т ever saw, with leaves fifteen feet long, and the smaller eatable 
species, or pura (purra), which the natives tell me is only found in three 
places in the island. I observe that they are very difficult to distinguish in 
the dry state; when alive they are easily distinguished by the leaflets of the 
pura being somewhat crumpled or bullate, while those of 4. erecta are longer 
and quite flat. Here, too, is the prickly fern found by M. Vesco, but over- 
looked by me; in fact, the wood is full of rare ferns, both terrestrial and 
epiphytal. Here I found a plant which I should feel certain was a Commelina 
if I had not been before deceived with what I afterwards found to be an 
orchid. I have never been able to find it in flower, but have live plants doing 
well. I have also found an Astelia, but forgot to pick up the specimen which 
I tore down from the tree which I had ascended for the purpose. 
Passing the wood I began to ascend a steep wall of earth which forms the 
extreme summit of the range, finding on the ascent a plant of the Lestiacee, 
with leaves like a Marica five feet long, and, at the top, the Coprosma (which, 
however, I need not have gone so high for), and the plant I have previously 
mentioned as possibly one of the Celastracee, and which has, hitherto, been 
only found in this place. There is almost as great a variety among the trees 
and shrubs as among the ferns, but I do not recollect more than two or three 
peculiar to this locality; one is an Urticaceous tree with spikes of fruit 
resembling a Piper; another, a very large-leaved Cyrtandra, making the fifth 
species in Tahiti. Four species may be found at this spot: two of them 
slender, twiggy shrubs, and the other two strong, upright-growing plants, with 
leaves a foot long, and huge heads of sweet-scented white flowers, as large as 
Achimenes grandiflora; one species is very common in all damp situations 
inland, whether mountain or valley; it has thin wrinkled leaves ; the species 
which I have only seen here has equally large leaves, but they are fleshy, 
smooth, and white underneath. It is a strange thing that I have never but 
once found a fruit on the common kind, although all the others ripen and seed 
abundantly. In the common sort the peduncles are very short, and the 
immature seed vessels appear always to be destroyed by the rotting of the 
great fleshy mass of decaying bracts and calices surrounding them. They would 
* It was discovered by my friend M. Vesco that the sporules of a are 
ammable, like — of Lycopodiwm, which they exactly resemble in appearance. Is 
this generally known 
