On the Botany of Tahiti. Ixxiii 



I sat down on a stone and knocked the dirt out of my shoes, just to vex 

 him, and in five minutes more was in a place where I knew very well he 

 would not dare venture to pursue me. 



The tops of these first ranges of hills are frequently quite bare of 

 vegetation, apparently owing to some poisonous ingredient in the soil, which 

 is of a bright red colour, like ochre ; when anything does grow on these red 

 patches, which are always very much cut up by watercourses, it is the 

 Metrosideros villosa, which clings to any small portion of brown soil that may 

 have been brought down from a higher level by the rains, and makes a 

 miserable sort of living in the midst of desolation. Where the soil is not red 

 it is covered, in patches only, with a few dry grasses, particularly a Cenchrus, 

 Bidens australis, stunted grasses, and Gleichenia. After passing these barren 

 spots I came to a path along the side of a hill, which was more fertile, and 

 was covered with other grasses, a pretty Hedysarum with purplish flowers, 

 stray Diosmeas and Tamuses, also a large plant which I never saw anywhere 

 else, and which appeared to be a Smilax, but it was not in flower. Several 

 species of Cucurbitacece and Convolvulacece grow among the grass, and also 

 several fei-ns worth collecting. 



At the bottom of this slope, just where the path entered the bushy fringe 

 of the little stream, is a tree of a species of Pittos2)oru7)i, with insignificant 

 greenish flowers, rare in most parts of Tahiti, but not uncommon in Morea ; 

 in general appearance, when in fruit, it strongly resembles P. undidatum. 

 The path crosses the stream just above a pretty little cascade, overshadowed 

 by a clump of bamboos, which grow from near the bottom ; on the other 

 side, in a sort of niche, is a plant of the fei. There are two little basins of 

 rock through which the water passes before it falls, and it is altogether a 

 charming place for a pic-nic. I have once or twice made my breakfast there 

 before going fui'ther ; as it is the last water on the road it is necessary to fill 

 your bottles here for the day's supply. I intended to have made this spot a 

 sort of wild garden, but had only time to plant one tree, a Bixa oidlana, which 

 some future botanist will perhaps wonder at finding in such a spot. On the 

 burau and pirita trees here {Hibiscus tiliaceus and Nauclea, nitida) are to be 

 seen four or five kinds of orcliideous epiphytes (Dendrobium biflorum and 

 D. myosurus), the plant called Cyontidium umbellatum, and the two orchids so 

 common on the small islands of the group, one with equitant leaves, and the 

 other without any leaves at all, but merely a mass of green roots with 

 a little scape of almost invisible flowers ; I suppose them to be the plants 

 called Ujndendrum fasciolata and equitans in the catalogues, because formerly 

 every plant which was not a Dendrobium was an Epidendru7n, and vice versd. 



It is no use to ascend this valley ; I came down it once, and got nothing 

 for my trouble but torn clothes. On crossing this little stream I passed under 



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