22 



PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



Bean to the stranded seeds of Entada scandens, regarding them as the 

 products of the " sea-trees " (sea-fans, etc.). These " sea-shrubs " 

 may attain a considerable size on our coasts. Sloane, who in his return 

 voyage from the West Indies touched at the Scilly Islands, writes (II., 

 347) that " on these rocks grows the Frutex marinus, flahelliformis" 

 a specimen seen by him having " such dimensions and beauty that 

 King Charles II. kept it many years, even to his death, for the orna- 

 ment of his closet." 



Sea Bean and Sea Nut are names still applied, as I found, in various 

 parts of the world to the seeds of Mucuna and Entada when picked 

 up either afloat in the sea or stranded on the beach ; and one hears 

 at times some singular opinions as to their origin. On one occasion 

 I had a difficulty in persuading a gentleman, who wore a seed of 

 Mucuna urens as a charm on his gold chain, that it was not some 

 spontaneous production of the waves. The appellation of Gulf 

 Nut, used at times by those who gather these seeds on European 

 beaches, would be more appropriate. 



Gunnerus, Bishop of Drontheim, and Strom, the Norwegian 

 naturalist, first supplied the materials for the identification of the 

 tropical elements of Scandinavian beach-drift to the Linnean botan- 

 ists; and, as Sernander points out (p. 116), it is through the work 

 of Tonning, a pupil of Linnaeus, that their observations are usually 

 known to the world (Amcen. Acad., VII). Although seemingly 

 not acquainted with Sloane's writings, Gunnerus formed independ- 

 ently the same conclusions respecting the origin of the foreign seeds 

 and fruits in the drift. His observations were published in the 

 memoirs of the Drontheim Society (Copenhagen, 1765); and the 

 results together with the botanical identifications of the plants were 

 incorporated by Tonning in his paper. Strom refers to the foreign 

 drift in his description of the bailiwick of Sondmore, published in 

 1766, a work quoted by Gumprecht (p. 420). I do not gather that 

 the matter attracted the special attention of Linnaeus beyond the 

 fact that in the following volume of the Amcenitates he cites, in 

 illustration of the ocean's part in seed-distribution, the seeds and 

 fruits washed up on the coasts of Norway, as specified by Tonning. 



The Early Scottish References. — In their quaint descriptions 

 of the Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetland Islands, the old 

 authors often give prominence to the foreign drift seeds stranded on 

 their shores. Under the curious name of " Molucca Beans " we find 

 their virtues described, both real and imaginary. Master James 

 Wallace, minister of Kirkwall, in A Description of the Isles of Orkney 

 published in 1693, and his son, Dr. James Wallace, F.R.S., in the 

 edition of his father's book, which was issued with additions in 1700, 

 were among the first to direct the attention of British naturalists 

 to this matter. In 1703 Mr. Martin Martin, a native of the Hebrides, 

 gave to the world an account of these islands in A Description of 

 the Western Islands of Scotland, where he dwells especially on the 

 medicinal virtues of the " Molocca Beans " and on their efficacy 

 as charms against the " evil eye." Mr. Thomas Pennant in A 

 Voyage to the Hebrides in 1772 places these " nuts commonly called 

 Molucca Beans " amongst the amulets employed by the islanders. 



