XVI LITTORAL AND INLAND PLANTS' RELATIONSHIP i6i 



of the Western Pacific would receive from their occurrence in these 

 islands considerable support for his views. The fruits of the 

 inland Fijian species are large, the smallest being three inches in 

 length ; and the agency of birds seems to be out of the question. 



The fruits of the littoral species possess dry buoyant husks that 

 enable them to be carried by the currents over wide tracts of ocean. 

 Those of the Fijian inland species display only a trace of these 

 buoyant coverings and the floating power is much diminished or 

 absent altogether. These inland species are two or three in 

 number. One of them, described as a new species by Seemann 

 under the name of B. edulis, has edible kernels and is sometimes 

 cultivated. A species that I found growing in the plantations 

 of the Solomon Islanders in Bougainville Straits may be near 

 the Fijian tree just named {Solomon Islands, pp. 85, 297). Its 

 kernels are edible ; and I may add that the Solomon Islanders 

 cultivate other species with edible fruits. We cannot, therefore, 

 exclude the agency of the aborigines in the distribution of the 

 inland species of this genus. Home found an undescribed species 

 in Fiji, which may be that which I found on the slopes of Mount 

 Seatura in Vanua Levu, as described in Note 50 ; and it is quite 

 possible that it was originally a cultivated tree, though not 

 necessarily within the memory of the later generations of the 

 aborigines. 



This retrocession to the wild state of cultivated plants and the 

 resulting production of apparently new species is a point on which 

 Dr. Beccari lays considerable stress in the English edition of his 

 book on the Great Forests of Borneo. He takes the case of 

 Nephelium and other fruit-trees and shows how in old clearings, 

 long since abandoned, they have undergone singular alteration in 

 characters. For these reasons, therefore, Barringtonia can scarcely 

 be regarded as offering in its inland species unequivocal evidence 

 of a previous continental condition of the islands of the Western 

 Pacific. Nor, as shown in Note 50, should we be justified in 

 establishing a genetic connection between the inland and coast 

 species ; but a great deal of research is needed before we can 

 handle the numerous interesting problems connected with the 

 genus ; and indeed it cannot be said that the specific limits of the 

 inland Polynesian trees have been definitely determined, or the 

 species themselves diagnosed. 



VOL. II 



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