On the Botany of Tahiti. Ixix 



bushes, so that the abyss on each side is completely hidden from view, and 

 even if it was j)ossible to stick on to a bank of slippery earth, few people would 

 like to try the experiment if they could not see a bottom to arrive at in case 

 they slipped. I am a tolerably good climber myself over rocks or up trees, 

 but I confess that I never could muster courage to descend any of those earth 

 cliffs, particularly after a small experiment which I made one day in climbing 

 up a steep earthy ridge about as wide as a horse's back, which experiment 

 resulted in my slipping back about fifty feet, to the great detriment of my 

 nails and breeches in front, and thinking myself exceedingly lucky at last to 

 fall in with a Metrosideros bush, which brought me up just at the edge of a 

 still further descent of about 150 feet, where I should not have had the 

 advantage of slipping down astride. After this, when I saw any tempting- 

 looking plants just beneath me, on the crest of a hill, I contented myself with 

 speculating on the probable distance I should have to travel ere I reached the 

 bottom if I over-reached myself, at the same time taking particular care not 

 to do so. 



The most common ti'ee to be found in such situations is a large Araliaceous 

 plant, with compressed leaves and about ten consolidated styles, also a plant 

 perhaps of the Celastroma, which "was procured by my friend M. Yesco, in 

 flower, with tufted entire leaves, like a Dajjhne, and axillary racemes of 

 flowers with an irregular number of lobes and stamens, and apj)arently a large 

 disk in place of style. I send you a bad specimen of it, which was all I could 

 get. 



The common tree-fern of the mountains (a Cyalhea) is the ugliest I ever 

 saw, and at the same time one of the most curious ; it is slender, and quite 

 smooth in the trunk, showing the scars only at considerable intervals, and, 

 appai'ently in consequence of its great rapidity of growth, the leaves have their 

 bases quite distinct from one another, and more than an inch apart, instead of 

 being, as in all the other species I have seen, quite closely overlapping. It is 

 also carious in throwing out a species of tuberous offset from the upper part 

 of the trunk ; these are attached by a small neck to the parent, and in time 

 throw out leaves. I suppose that in time they become too heavy and fall off, 

 making young plants. I hope to send you one or two of them alive to 

 England. There is also a Cyatloea, very like G. dealbata of ISTew Zealand, but 

 it is very rare ; it is not proliferous. A slender one, not pi^oliferous, and a 

 very handsome one, with a stout stem, the leaves of which much resemble 

 those of C. medullaris of ISTew Zealand ; it is sparingly proliferous. I think 

 I have live plants of this also. I do not know of any more species of tree- 

 ferns, but the natives, who call the curious wool of the Sandwich Island ti'ee- 

 fern mamau (mammow), say that the same substance is found, although very 

 rarely, in their own mountains ; it is, however, possible that they allude to 



