236 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



botanical geographer, for although they have their greatest affinities 

 in America, as well as the sub-arboreous Lobeliaceae, so numerous 

 in the Sandwich Islands, yet the bulk of the vegetation seems to 

 have been derived from the Australo-Asiatic region." 



In attempting to approach this problem I do so from the stand- 

 point of dispersal. There are so many intricate questions bound 

 up with the systematic position of these genera that in dealing with 

 them the student of plant-distribution would require the capacities 

 and opportunities of the eminent botanist who dealt with the distri- 

 bution of ten thousand species of Compositae. On such ground, 

 therefore, and only under the guidance of others, I will lightly 

 tread. 



The Endemic Genera of Composite. 



On account of their endemic character the peculiar genera of 

 Compositae are regarded as belonging to the oldest era of the 

 powering plants of the island-groups lying in the tropical latitudes 

 of the open Pacific. This is the view of Bentham, but it is, of 

 course, the opinion that most botanists would arrive at with the 

 facts before them. With the exception of the solitary Tahitian 

 genus Fitchia, they are all restricted to the Hawaiian Islands, and 

 nearly all are either shrubby or arborescent, the greatest height of 

 25 to 30 feet being attained in the Tahitian genus and in Hespero- 

 mannia of Hawaii. 



Nine Hawaiian genera are included in this era, though, strictly 

 speaking, we ought only to concern ourselves with the six genera, 

 Remya, Argyroxiphium, Wilkesia, Dubautia, Raillardia, and Hes- 

 peromannia, since the other three, Tetramolopium, Lipochaeta, and 

 Campylotheca, are only on the borderland of generic distinction. 

 It is, however, necessary that we should include these three genera 

 in our treatment of the Hawaiian endemic genera, more especially 

 because they appear to have been the last arrivals of the early 

 Compositae. They still display, as shown below, a very suggestive 

 connection with the land of their birth, a circumstance that is of 

 much importance in finally determining the source of the other 

 strictly endemic genera, where the links with their original homes 

 have been in most cases largely severed. 



It would, however, be quite out of place here to enter into any 

 details into the affinities of these Hawaiian genera of Compositae, 

 and I will limit myself here to such general conclusions as may be 

 derived from the pages of Bentham, Hillebrand, Hemsley, and 



