EDIBLE FRUIT. 317 
encountered, and there appear to be several varieties. 
It is sixty feet high, and shares with most Fijian fruit- 
trees the peculiarity of yielding a useful timber. The 
leaves are pinnate, the leaflets serrate, and when first 
opening, display a brilliant red tinge, which at a dis- 
tance looks as if the tree were in bloom. The flowers, 
arranged in terminal panicles, are whitish and of dimi- 
nutive size. The fruit, ripening in January and Febru- 
ary, has rather a glutinous honey-like taste, and attains 
about the size of a pomegranate. The Fijians deem the 
Dawa peculiar to their islands. It certainly does not 
occur to the eastward in a wild state, as the Tonguese 
are said to have obtained it from Fiji; but it seems to 
be quite common in all the groups lying westwards, the 
New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and others. A native 
of Were assured me it was plentiful in his island, and 
Dr. Bennett, of Sydney, found it cultivated under the 
“name of “Thay,” at Rotuma, a little island to the north 
of Fiji, as recorded in his ‘Gatherings of a Naturalist.’ 
I succeeded in carrying living plants to the botanic gar- 
den at Sydney, where they were left in charge of Mr. 
Moore, and whence they may perhaps find their way to 
the new colony of Queensland, and prove acceptable 
additions to the fruits of that country. 
The Kavika or Malay-apple (Eugenia Malaccensis, 
Linn.) abounds in all the forests. As in the Hawaiian 
and other Polynesian islands, there are two varieties; 
the purple (Kavika damudamu) and the white (Kavika 
vulavula). When the tree, which attains about forty feet 
in height, is in flower, the ground underneath is densely 
covered with petals and stamens, looking, especially if 
