FEEJEE GROUP. 34] 
sonora, Erythrina indica, Cordia, with rich yellow flowers, Xylo- 
carpus, which has a large and very attractive-looking yellow fruit; a 
species of Ixora and a Volkameria, both with fragrant blossoms; the 
mangrove (tiri of the natives), which pushes its vegetation even into 
the salt water, and covers large tracts of coral reefs and muddy 
creeks, giving a beautiful appearance to the low and swampy ground. 
The last-named plant seems peculiarly adapted to this situation, and it 
not only lives. and thrives in salt water, but the young plants are found 
pushing themselves towards the sea, springing from the chinks and 
eracks of the coral; they are frequently overflowed three or four feet 
at high water, but they nevertheless contrive to hold their place, and 
when they gain sufficient height, they again send forth their aerial 
roots, which descending, soon give the parent stem sufficient support to 
withstand all the efforts of the surf to displace them. 
Our botanists were extremely industrious in collecting in this new 
and prolific field. The list of the plants gathered amounts to about six 
hundred and fifty species, and they are of opinion, that many more 
remain, which, at some future day, it may fall to the lot of other bota- 
nists to collect. This, however, cannot happen until the islands shall 
have become more civilized, and there shall be some safety in wander- 
ing into the mountain regions, which is now attended with much 
danger. 
The labours of agriculture, and the phenomena of vegetation, serve 
as the foundation of their calendar, and furnish names to some of their 
months, or the ara into which they she the year. Of these they 
reckon eleven, viz. 
1. Vulai songa sou tombe sou, or Nugalevu ~— Reeds blossom. 
2. Vulai songa sou seselieb » . «Build yam-houses. 
3. Vulai Matua, or Endoye doye ‘ «i ooNamsiripe.:,); 
4, Vulai mbota mbota. ; 
5. Vulai kele kele, or Vulai mayo ayo: Digging yams. 
6. Vulaiwere were . -. ° : ° Weeding month, 
7. Vulailoulou. . . « «  « ~-Digging ground and planting. 
8, Vulai Kawawaka. sf oe, 
9. Bololo va va conde. 
10. Bololo lieb. 
11. Numa lieb, or Nuga Iai lai. 
The first of these corresponds nearly to January. 
The month of Bololo lieb seems to be the only one that is astrono- 
mically determined; and that arrives when the sun is over a particular 
part of Ambatiki, an island in sight from Ovolau. | 
~The month of June is known and established by the flowering of a 
vine, that 1 is found on the shore, called tombebe. 
2D2 
