14 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



common to Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, the Turks Islands, and 

 Jamaica was observed by me at Colon on the extreme western border 

 of the Caribbean Sea. On these beaches occurred the fruits and 

 seeds of Hippomane mancinella, Manicaria saccifera, Mucuna urens t 

 Sacoglottis amazonica, Spondias lutea, etc. Reference has already 

 been made to one or two of the peculiar features of the beach-drift 

 on the Colon side of the Panama Isthmus. 



The Absentees from the Beach-drift of the Turks Islands. — 

 It is thus evident that most of the larger foreign drift of the Turks 

 Islands is to be found on the beaches throughout the West Indian 

 region. But the beach-drift of this small group does not contain all 

 the larger fruits and seeds that in one locality and another are charac- 

 teristic of West Indian drift ; and we shall see that their absence is 

 significant of the weeding-out or exclusion of the drift least fitted for 

 the accomplishment of the transatlantic passage, of which the Turks 

 Islands represent the end of an early stage. For instance, it lacks 

 the fruits of Grias cauliflora which are so characteristic of Jamaican 

 beach-drift and are probably confined to that part of the West Indies. 

 It lacks also the pods of Ecastaphyllum brownei, which form a common 

 feature in the stranded drift of Jamaica and doubtless also of Cuba, 

 as well as of the Caribbean side of the Panama Isthmus, as at Colon. 

 Neither of these drift fruits seem to have been recorded from the 

 stranded drift on the western shores of Europe, nor are they likely 

 to be found there ; and their absence from the beaches of the Turks 

 Islands is an indication of their unfitness for the ocean traverse. Nor 

 do we find thrown up on the beaches of this outlying West Indian 

 group several of the strange fruits stranded with much other Orinoco 

 drift on the south coast of Trinidad, and doubtless not possessing 

 great floating powers. 



Generally speaking (it may be added) I found nearly all the drift 

 seeds and fruits on the Turks Islands beaches that my previous 

 experience in other parts of the West Indies led me to expect. An 

 exception, however, which is concerned with the absence of the empty 

 fruits of Astrocaryum, a genus of palms, is dealt with on page 181, 

 but it is highly probable that I overlooked them, since their occur- 

 rence on the beaches of the Azores implies great capacity for transport 

 by currents, though in an ineffective state. 



Oceanic Drift in Transit represented on the Beaches of 

 the Turks Islands. — Since in this small group the local flora can 

 be readily excluded, we are here presented with oceanic drift in 

 transit. The drift here stranded is something more than a sample 

 of the material that is for ever being drifted in the Antillean Stream 

 westward and northward past and through the Bahamas towards 

 the Florida Straits, where the Gulf Stream concentrates its energy 

 before proceeding to traverse the North Atlantic. It represents the 

 residue of all the vegetable debris (fruits, seeds, bark, leaves, branches, 

 tree-trunks, etc.) brought down to the sea by the rivers, or carried off 

 by the currents from the shores, of the large islands lying to the 

 southward and eastward. Since much of this material possesses 

 limited floating powers, it would go to the bottom in a short time. 

 After drifting about for weeks or months the mass of vegetable debri,s 



