I INTRODUCTION 3 



in the flora of a Pacific island, it was always with a sense of 

 disappointment that I turned away from some pretty flowering 

 plant that failed to present me with its seed. Amongst the 

 wonders of the plant-world rank the Tree Lobelias of the 

 Hawaiian Islands ; yet their greatest charm to me lay not so much 

 in their giant-flowers and their arborescent habit as in the mystery 

 surrounding the home of their birth and their mode of arrival in 

 these islands. When I first stood under the shade of the lofty 

 Dammara vitiensis, the Kauri Pine of Fiji, all my interest lay in 

 its cones lying on the ground ; and I remember how eagerly I 

 handled my first specimen, and how anxiously I watched its 

 behaviour when experimenting on its capacity for different modes 

 of transport. When a strange plant presented itself on a beach, 

 my first care was to ascertain the fitness of its fruits or seeds for 

 transport by the currents ; and all inland plants with fruits likely 

 to attract frugivorous birds were at once invested with a special 

 interest for me. 



The mangrove swamps were always great places of interest, and 

 months of my sojourn in the Pacific must have been passed in 

 exploring their creeks and in examining their vegetation. Botanists 

 usually avoid these regions ; but the observation of the germination 

 of the Rhizophora fruits on the trees and the inquiries connected 

 with their methods of distribution over the oceans were pursuits so 

 engrossing that I ignored the numerous discomforts connected with 

 the exploration of these gloomy regions. The magnificent man- 

 grove forests of the Ecuador coast of the Pacific will live longest 

 in my memory, though the risks were considerably greater and the 

 discomfort of existence extreme. But the mangrove swamps 

 present us with glimpses into the conditions of plant life during 

 the warmer epochs of the earth's history, when perhaps the seed- 

 stage was largely dispensed with, whilst an atmosphere, laden 

 with moisture and screening off much of the sun's light, enveloped 

 most of the circumference of the globe. 



The plant world viewed only from the standpoint of dispersal 

 may lack much that is pleasing to the eye, though it abounds with 

 small and great problems fascinating to the reason. Matters of 

 great moment are here involved, and in the case of the Pacific 

 islands they concern not only the source of the oceanic floras, 

 but the story of the islands themselves ; whilst behind these there 

 rise up questions of yet deeper import, questions that are bound up 

 with the beginnings of genera and species, and with other mysteries, 

 of life on the earth. The distribution of plants presents something 



B 2 



