116 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



In several cases the tree was growing in the vicinity, but in Jamaica, 

 though the bared fruits were to be frequently observed on the beaches, 

 I never came upon the tree, though, according to Grisebach and Pax, 

 it exists in the island. In the Turks Islands, as before remarked, 

 the tree does not grow, yet the fruits occurred on almost every beach, 

 and made up quite 10 per cent, of the larger drift. Wherever in 

 this locality the drift had been able to gather, some of them were 

 to be found, whether on Grand Turk and Greater Sand Cay, lying 

 at the north and south extremes, or at Eastern Cay, the most wind- 

 ward island of the group. As far as I can ascertain, these fruits have 

 not been recorded amongst the West Indian drift stranded on the 

 shores of Europe ; but it seems highly probable that they sometimes 

 reach those coasts. 



Terminalia catappa, L. 



Since this tree was originally introduced into the New World, 

 I need only refer to the fact that its dispersal by currents has long been 

 known in the tropics of the eastern hemisphere, where it frequents 

 the coasts, both insular and continental. In the writings of Schimper, 

 Hemsley, Ernst, and others (including, I may venture to add, my 

 own), it is frequently referred to in this connection. We learn from 

 the observations of Treub, Penzig, Ernst, and their associates that 

 its drupaceous fruits were amongst the first stranded on Krakatau 

 after the desolation of its surface by the eruption of 1883, and that 

 its young trees were amongst the earliest to establish themselves 

 near the beach. 



In the warm regions of the New World it is now widely distributed, 

 a work originally begun by man but since extended by the currents, 

 especially in those localities, as in the island of Grenada and at 

 Colon, where it has resumed its littoral station. In Grenada I found 

 it bordering the beach in the company of Coccoloba uvifera, Hippo- 

 mane mancinella, and Hibiscus tiliaceus. According to the data given 

 by Harshberger, in his work on North America (p. 686), it grows 

 characteristically among the trees lining the beach in the Virgin 

 Islands in association with Coccoloba uvifera, Hippomane mancinella, 

 Thespesia populnea, etc. 



Its fruits came under my notice in the beach-drift of Jamaica, 

 Colon, and the Turks Islands. In the last-named locality they are 

 abundant and occur on almost every beach where drift collects, 

 always bared of their outer fleshy covering, and nearly always in a 

 much weathered condition, but in most cases containing a sound 

 seed. As is well described by Schimper in his Indo-Malayische 

 Strandflora (p. 170), this drupaceous fruit owes its floating powers 

 to a thick layer of cork-like buoyant tissue that invests the " stone," 

 none of the other materials possessing independent buoyancy. 

 The subject of the floating capacity of the fruits of the genus is fully 

 discussed in my work on Plant Dispersal. 



Although Grisebach, Hemsley and other authorities agree in regard- 

 ing this tree as introduced into the New World, it is remarkable 

 that about a third of the total number of species in the genus, as 

 indicated in the Index Kewensis (132 in all), are confined to America, 



