WEST INDIAN BEACH-DRIFT 



13 



Explanation of the abbreviations. — Tur. = Turks Islands; Trin. = 

 Trinidad and the adjacent islands of Tobago and Grenada; Jam. = 

 Jamaica; Col. = Colon. 



Xote. — Further details concerning the condition in which the seed 

 and fruits occurred in the drift and other particulars will be found 

 on the pages shown in the index. 



Beach-drift of Trinidad and the Neighbouring Islands of 

 Tobago and Grenada. — In the same way almost all the larger 

 fruits and seeds most frequent in the beach-drift of the Turks Islands 

 came under my notice on the beaches of Trinidad, Tobago, and 

 Grenada. An important exception existed in the seeds of Entada 

 seandens, a plant that is not a member of the floras of this part of the 

 West Indian region, and is seemingly absent from those of the district 

 of the Amazon and the Orinoco. Together with much strange drift 

 on these beaches I found the fruits and seeds of Carapa, Cassia, 

 Crescentia, Dioclea. Fevillea, Hippomane, Mammea, Manicaria, 

 Omphalea, Mucuna, SacogJottis, and Spondias named in the Turks 

 Islands list. Fruits of palms are also frequent, including those of 

 Astrocaryum and Bactris, the last probably derived from the palms 

 growing in the coastal swamps of the locality. 



But on the Trinidad and Tobago beaches occurs much drift that 

 is strange to the West Indian region, and is evidently derived from the 

 Orinoco district as well as from the rivers of the Guianas and from the 

 valley of the Amazon. Amongst the leguminous seeds are those of 

 a species of Mucuna, 1| inches across (its incrusting marine organisms 

 often telling a story of a long sea-passage), and the seeds of a species 

 of Guilandina unknown to me from elsewhere. References to the 

 seeds of these plants will be found later. But there is much of the 

 strange drift piled on the south coasts of Trinidad that would 

 not withstand long immersion in the sea. This is certainly true of 

 a remarkable fruit which, as Prof. Pax informs me, seems to be a 

 species of Hippocratea ; but several of the other fruits and seeds 

 have not been identified. 



Amongst the unusual objects thrown up on the coasts of Trinidad 

 are the huge brown embryos, three to four inches long and bare of 

 coverings, of Dimorphandra mora, a common leguminous forest tree 

 of British Guiana and also a native of this island. I was not aware 

 of their identity until I recognised them in the Kew Museum. Accord- 

 ing to Hemsley the embryo of this tree is one of the largest in the 

 vegetable kingdom (Chall. Bot., IV., 301). An empty pod was in- 

 cluded in the Morris collection of Jamaican beach-drift. These 

 naked seeds are of a very tough, durable nature ; but it seems scarcely 

 likely that they would retain their vitality after prolonged notation 

 in the sea. 



Another singular woody fruit, top-shaped, deeply grooved, and 2J 

 inches in size, is identical with a fruit which is named Juglans jamai- 

 censis in the drift collection of the Kew Museum, and is perhaps the 

 one referred to by Hemsley under Juglans with a query in his account 

 of the Morris collection (Ibid., IV., 303). 



Drift on the Colon Beaches. — Much of the larger drift that is 



