Beccari and Rock — Pritchardia. 5 



all its congeners as a species, is so similar to them in leaf-structure, flowers, and 

 fruits, that it is impossible not to admit that this species had a common origin' with 

 them. It is also a singular fact, unique to my knowledge among the palms, that the 

 three segments of the corolla detach themselves from the corolla tube at the moment 

 of flowering, leaving the stamens uncovered, in Pr. IVrightii in exactly the same 

 manner as in all its congeners. 



In what manner the fruits of the progenitrix of Pr. IVrightii were enabled 

 to cross the wide spaces of ocean, interposed between the nearest Polynesian 

 Islands inhabited by the Pritchardia and the American continent, is a mystery. 

 And this mystery is greatly increased by the fact that these fruits must have sur- 

 mounted the mountain chain which separates the Pacific from the Atlantic, unless 

 we assume that in some more or less remote geological epoch, the configuration of 

 the western coast of the American continent, was very dift'erent from what it is at 

 present, and that the vast expanse of the Pacific was broken by lands now sub- 

 merged, thereby lessening the immense distances now interposed between the most 

 eastern islands of Asia and the New World. 



I am willmg to admit with Guppy' that the dispersal of the fruits of many 

 plants may have been assisted locally by pigeons, and that through their agency, 

 the geographical area of the Pr. pacitica may have been amplified, and even that 

 by such means forms related to that species may have been produced. In the special 

 case of Pr. Wrightii one may perhaps suggest the hypothesis, already put forth by 

 me,^ of the transfer of the fruits of certain plants by means of the violent volcanic 

 phenomena which must surely have occurred during the elevation of the Andean 

 ranges. Nor is the probability to be excluded, that at such a time a commtmication 

 by water may have been established between the two oceans, and that the fruits of 

 a Pritchardia of Polynesia may have been carried to, and finally deposited on, an 

 island in the Caribbean Sea. Guppy however supposed that even the fruits of the 

 large-fruited species of the Hawaiian Islands may have been transported by ocean 

 currents, as he notes that those of Pr. Gaiidichaudii are of such a nature as to allow 

 them to float for at least five weeks. But that this and other Hawaiian species with 

 similar large fruits can have originated from small fruits such as those of the 

 Fijian Pr. pacitica and Pr. Thurstonii, I find it hard to believe. It seems to me more 

 likely that the opposite is the truth, that is, that the Fijian species may have been 

 derived from those of Hawaii, and also that the two species of the Dangerous 

 Archipelago may have been derived from the same source. 



There is not a shadow of doubt that the Pritchardias are generically closely 

 related to the Asiatic Corypheae, Livistona and Licnala, and especially to the Pritch- 

 ardiopsis of New Caledonia; but on the other hand the genera JVashiiigtoiiia, Bra- 

 liea, Ervthca, and Copcriiicia, all proper to the western part of North America, 

 exhibit an equal degree of affinity to the Pritchardias. If one considers the great 



1 Guppy, II. B., Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific, vol. II, p. 326, 1906. 

 5- Malesia, vol. Ill, p. 303. 



