1 86 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



elevation of 1,700 feet on the slopes of Koro-mbasanga in Vanua 

 Levu, acquires from the lanceolate shape of its leaflets quite a 

 character of its own, though it comes nearest to Caesalpinia bondu- 

 cella. Mountain forms also occur, as indicated in a later page, in the 

 forests of Samoa and in Tahiti ; but in the first-named group they 

 are referred by Reinecke to C. bonducella, and in Tahiti by Drake 

 del Castillo to C. bonduc. In the Samoan forests the inland 

 plants possess pods deprived of the prickles that are so character- 

 istic of the beach plants. Before one can pronounce definitely on 

 the relation between the coast and inland forms in any of the 

 groups, a thorough investigation of the connections between the 

 two shore-species is needed. I am inclined to think that they will 

 prove to belong to a single dimorphic (or perhaps polymorphic) 

 species. 



The distribution of C<zsalpinia bonducella andC. bonduc. — Botanists 

 agree in giving C. bonducella a distribution around the tropics of 

 the globe ; but they are not at all unanimous with respect to the 

 other species. According to Mr. Hemsley this species is by no 

 means so universally dispersed as C. bonducella. It is unknown 

 from Africa and Australia ; but it is generally characteristic of 

 tropical Asia and the Malay Archipelago. The same authority 

 alludes to specimens in the Kew Herbarium from Florida and the 

 West Indies {Bot. Chall. iv, 300). Drake del Castillo gives both 

 species a range through the tropics, whilst Schimper seems in 

 doubt about the occurrence of C. bonduc in the New World, and 

 Mr. Burkill makes no allusion to its American habitat in his paper 

 on the Tongan flora. The cause of this confusion is doubtless to 

 be mainly attributed to the variation in characters of the plants, 

 and to the occurrence of intermediate forms. 



We should be scarcely consistent if we assumed that of two 

 kindred shore-species dispersed by the currents one had its home 

 in America and the other in the Old World. The same home 

 must belong to both. According to the principle laid down in 

 Chapter VIII, and referred to under Entada scandens, it is held 

 that a strand-plant, with its home in Asia, on account of the arrange- 

 ment of the currents could never reach the American continent, 

 and that American shore-plants are for the most part native-born 

 except those hailing from the African West Coast, which, however, 

 lies within the American province of tropical strand-plants. From 

 this standpoint Caesalpinia bonducella would be regarded as now 

 having its home in the New World, and since it is found on both 

 the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of that continent (as well as on 



