52 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the Iiiluni is brown, not black. The buoyancy of this seed has been shown by 

 Dr. Guppy to depeml, not on the presence "-f an internal cavity, but on the 

 intrinsic lightness of the kernel. 



Ipomea taberosa Linn. 



As a drift object it is hard to say whether we have to deal with a seed or 

 a fruit in the case of this species, which is a lofty climber, wide-spread in 

 the West Indies and in the tropics of South America, Africa, and Asia. The 

 fniit or seotl ixcurs as a hard, ebony-black, polished object, depressed, glolx)se- 

 or slightly s«iuarish in outline, about an inch in diameter, marked with fmir 

 transverse grooves on one side, and with a C-shaped or crescentic hilum ok 

 the other. Though normally a four-seeiletl fruit, often but one embryo is 

 develoi>e<l. while the envelope retains its four-partite character. To this 

 arrest of development of a portion of the embryos the high buoyancy of the 

 one seedetl fruit is due. The seed or fruit is veiy well figured and described 

 by Cluains' as one of si.x fruits received by him at various times fi-oni James 

 tlan-t, a l/indi>n aj»othecary and j)erfuuier, who practised tulip-growing. 

 Two figures are given by Clusius, one on page 41, showing the chai-acteristic 

 C-sha{)e<l hilum; the other, on page 40, showing the quadripartite division 

 of the fniit, which he descrilies as apparently consisting of four nuts joined 

 together (pr/i(/i «■ yMrt/Mor rtr<//«>its »(i/u// ronnfxis cotiManx), &ni[ so hard in 

 texture as almost to resist the file. Clusius believes the fiuit to be. iden- 

 tical with the Arfllana imnjativa. previously desciibcd by Ferdinand Oviedo 

 in 1526. 



I»ng known from the drift •■i tiie >tittish west coast, ii was not until 

 IS92 that the species was iiientified. As a constituent of the West Indian 

 drift Dr. Guppy finds it to be quite rare, and on the European shores it i& 

 by no means so fre«iuent or so wide-sprea<l as Kntada, Mucuna, and 

 Guilandina. It is recorded with certainty only fmni the Hebiides. the 

 Orkneys, and the Shetlands. T<> this i^ng»'. Miss Dt^lati'.s Donearal record 

 gives a considerable extension. 



Saccoglottis amazonica ^fari. 



This is the largest of the European drift fruits, and its origin is almost, 

 certainly the Amazon and Orinoco basins. As a drift fruit. Dr. Guppy finds, 

 it to be wide-8piea4l on West Indian beaches, where it was ot»served by 

 Sloane in Jamaica two centuries ago, and identified as one of the fniits cast* 

 up on the n>>rtii-west islands of Scotlaml. Good figures of the fruit are 

 given by Clusius at page 45 of his " Exotici," 1605. Here we are told 



' " Exotici," lib. ii, cap. iri. 



