AFRO-INDIAN REGIONS. 



223 



The vegetable growth was confined to the top of the island ; where 

 the freshly-green foliage showed, that we were again in districts subject 

 to rain. The most prominent plant proved to be Tournefortia argen- 

 tea, a large-leaved Cestrum-like shrub, eight or ten feet high, with 

 coarse spreading branches ; the intervening beds of Scoivola Koenigii, 

 a procumbent straggling shrub a foot high, being in some places dense 

 enough to conceal the soil ; Simana maritima was also a frequent 

 shrub, four to six feet high, and growing singly ; while on all dead 

 branches, a small but pretty Licheu (Borrera ?) was abundant. Here 

 and there, Cassyta filiformis was variously entwined, somewhat after 

 the manner of Cuscuta, but the stems larger, very much longer, and 

 of a green color. A single tree, twenty feet high, with spreading 

 branches and light-green leaves (perhaps the Calpidia), was growing 

 in the distance ; and more conspicuous than all the rest, the scattered 

 stocks of Pandanus, at one end of the island forming a grove, were 

 strikingly un-American in aspect. 



In the intervals between the shrubs, and often where these were 

 absent, humble plants more or less herbaceous were here and there 

 scattered over the bare soil, for the most part growing singly : as a 

 iviiWmg Boerhaavia with small purple flowers; a Lepidmm with smooth, 

 succulent, and apparently perennial leaves; an upright large-flowered 

 Meridiana ? ; an Achyranthes about two feet high ; a tenderly-herbaceous 

 Urtica?, only three or four inches high; the yet more humble Helio- 

 tropium .? afiomalum; and tufts of a single grass, a low and branching 

 Lepturus. 



The following plants were found growing on Clermont-Tonnerre : 

 and it will be observed, that our geographical order of numbering 

 commences with this island : 



Lepidiura (No. 1). A foot high ; stem sufFruticose at base ; leaves smooth, succulent, 

 evergreen ? Frequent.* 



* Cocos nucifera, (bis No. 1 Tropical America). About a dozen cocoa-palms were here 

 and there projecting amid the Pandanus grove, none of them much exceeding thirty 

 feet in height ; specimens of the old fruit were also met with. So well is it understood, 

 that the cocoa-palm occurs only in the cultivated state throughout the islands of the 

 Pacific, that traders, according to Capt. Vanderford, follow the rule, " Wherever you 

 see a cocoa-palm, you will find natives." 



Pandanus (No. 1 j a Polynesian and submaritime species). A few stocks growing where 

 we landed, some of them in fruit; (to all appearance spontaneously disseminated, but 

 the plant being useful to the natives, had possibly been introduced by them). 



