XXVI EL^OCARPUS 335 



groups of the Pacific, but it is to be found also in the smaller 

 islands of the Indian Ocean, there being an endemic species in 

 Mauritius. Amongst the Pacific Islands, a region with which 

 we are more immediately concerned, it has been recorded from the 

 Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Rarotonga, 

 and Hawaii. It is strange that the genus is not accredited to 

 Tahiti, but since it is represented in Rarotonga we may regard it as 

 not altogether absent from East Polynesia. Reinecke does not 

 include it amongst the Samoan plants, but Home, in a short 

 list of plants collected in Upolu about 1878, mentions Elaeocarpus 

 grseffei, a Fijian species ( Year in Fiji, p. 285). 



New Caledonia represents the principal centre of the genus 

 in the tropical Pacific, thirteen species being accredited to it in the 

 Index Kewensis. Seemann found six species in Fiji, a number that 

 does not seem to have been added to by Home. Of these one is 

 found in Tonga and Samoa, and of the rest perhaps most are 

 peculiar ; but one of them is closely allied to a second peculiar 

 Tongan species. Tonga possesses the two species just alluded to, 

 whilst Rarotonga and Hawaii have each a peculiar species. 



From an interesting comparison made by Mr. Burkill of some 

 of the Polynesian species, it would seem that Elaeocarpus, if not 

 actually possessing a widely-spread polymorphous species in 

 the tropical Pacific, presents us with the next stage in the differen- 

 tiation of the species. Thus, he says in his paper on the flora 

 of Vavau that an endemic Tongan species, E. tonganus, is allied to 

 three different species — E. grseffei from Fiji, E. floridanus from the 

 Solomon Group, and E. glandulifer from Ceylon — three species, he 

 remarks, which are " so closely allied that it is possible to regard 

 them as insular subspecies." It would thus appear that some of 

 the species of the Western Pacific are almost in touch with Asiatic 

 species. It would be of importance to determine whether some 

 affinity can be detected between the species of this part of 

 the Pacific and some of the widely-ranging species of Indo-Malaya, 

 such as E. ganitrus and E. oblongus. Mr. Burkill goes on to say 

 that the solitary Hawaiian and Rarotongan species are closely 

 allied, an inference which is of interest as indicating the route 

 by which Hawaii received its species. The genus, we may fairly 

 infer, once possessed a widely-ranging polymorphous or very variable 

 Asiatic species in the tropical Pacific ; and we see it now in the 

 next stage of specific differentiation in various far-removed regions. 

 In this connection Seemann significantly remarks that all the 

 Fijian species are evidently very local in the group. 



