20 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



VEGETATION. 



I regret that I was unable to form a Botanical Collection in 

 Funafuti. I did indeed attempt to dry plants in blotting paper, 

 but the extreme mmst.nrfi of the climat.R caused the specimens to 

 rot even in the press. Zoological study being the principal aim 

 of my visit, and the exhausting 'work of reef collecting leaving 

 little time or energy, botany was reluctantly sacrificed ; speci- 

 mens of such plants only as related to ethnological inquiry being 

 preserved in a solution of two or three per cent, of formol. 



The study of atoll floras was initiated by Henslow's examina- 

 tion* of the plants collected by Darwin on the Keeling Islands, 

 our knowledge of which was expanded by Forbesf and by 

 Guppy.J Lists of plants from the Marshall Islands, Maid on 

 Island,jl Gilbert Islands,!! Sikaiana Island,** Caroline Island,ft and 

 Fanning Island, JJ show a small number of the same species 

 repeated from atoll to atoll over enormous distances across the 

 Pacific Ocean. The identity of the vegetation possessed by tiny 

 islets separated by thousands of miles of deepest ocean is very 

 striking, since paradoxically they present a greater continuity of 

 life range than any continent can show. The inferences deducible 

 from the distribution of atoll plants are so admirably drawn by 

 Dr. H. B. Guppy, and are so entirely in accordance with my own 

 conclusions, that I extract from his article " The Polynesians and 

 their Plant-names, " the following expression of his views : 



"The low coral islands and the shores of the more elevated 

 and mountainous islands are occupied by plants such as Barring- 

 tonia speciosa, Calophyllum inophyllum, the Mangrove, Morinda 

 citrifolia, the Pandanus, Thespesia populnea, &c., that are known 

 to be dispersed by the currents ; and they are all plants that are 

 widely distributed over the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The 

 only doubt arises as to the particular route along which the 

 floating seed were drifted, and if that can be established we may 

 obtain a clue as to the route pursued by the Polynesians. Now 

 a species that, like Barringtonia speciosa or Thespesia populnea, 



* Florula Keelingensis, Ann. Nat. Hist., i., 1838, p. 337. 

 t Forbes A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago, 

 1885, p. 42. 



J Nature, xli., 1890, p. 492. 

 E. Betche, Berliner Gartenzeitung, 1844. 



|| Hooker in Hemsley, Challenger Beports Botany, i., 1885, p. 18. 

 *[Woodford Geogr. Journ., vi., 1895, p. 34G. 

 ** Beck Ann. K.K. Naturhist. Hofmus., iii., 1888, pp. 251-256. 

 tf Dixon Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci., ii., 1884, p. 88. 

 JJ Hemsley " Challenger " Eeports Botany, iii., 1885, p. 116. 

 Trans. Viet. Inst., 1896. 



