342 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



they may be small and gnarled or low and shrubby ; whilst in the 

 bogs and swamps of the high levels of Maui and Kauai the plant 

 grows as a prostrate shrub. It is not at all unlikely that the two 

 peculiar Hawaiian species of the genus had a common origin from 

 a widely-ranging species, which, if not the present M. polymorpha, 

 was its immediate ancestor. One of them was, indeed, included by 

 Dr. Seemann within the wide limits of this species, and the other 

 was accepted with a doubt. 



To illustrate the great vertical range in the Hawaiian Group of 

 Metrosideros polymorpha, I will take it as I found it in the island 

 of Hawaii. Here it ranges from the coast up to about 8,000 feet 

 above the sea. But it is in the middle forest-zone at elevations of 

 2,000 to 4,000 feet, where it is often associated with the Koa and 

 Olapa Trees (Acacia koa and Cheirodendron Gaudichaudii), that it is 

 most at home and attains its greatest size. Higher up at heights, 

 of 5,000 to 7,000 feet in the more open forests it is still in the 

 company of the trees just named together with Sophora chryso- 

 phylla and Myoporum sandwicense. At 8,000 feet it becomes very 

 stunted and is accompanied usually by bushes of Cyathodes and 

 other plants of similar bushy growth. In the lower parts of its 

 range, from 2,000 down to 1,000 feet, it forms forests with the 

 Kukui Tree (Aleurites moluccana), mingled also with smaller trees 

 such as the Hawaiian Olive (Osmanthus), and the Kopiko 

 (Straussia). Below 1,000 feet, and wherever bold promontories reach 

 the coast and the inland forest descends to the sea, we find it 

 associated with such trees and shrubs as the Lama (Maba sandwi- 

 censis) and different Akeas (Wikstroemia). On the partially 

 vegetated surfaces of old lava-flows near the coast it grows beside 

 bushes of the Ulei (Osteomeles anthyllidifolia) and of Cyathodes. 



Compared with its behaviour in Hawaii, Metrosideros poly- 

 morpha takes a relatively unimportant part in the vegetation of 

 Fiji. As Home observes, the trees are most common in the dry 

 parts of the two largest islands and grow in the poorest soil. I 

 found them in Vanua Levu usually in open exposed situations, 

 generally in the dry " talasinga " plains on the north side of the 

 island, where they were associated with Acacia Richii, Dodonaea 

 viscosa, and Casuarinas ; and sometimes they occurred in a shrubby 

 form on the rocky peaks of the highest mountains. In Rarotonga 

 also, as we learn from Cheeseman, it is on the tops of the rocky 

 peaks and along the crests of the ridges that this species, which is 

 abundant in the island, is frequently found. 



I may here allude to the curious fact observed by me on the 



