128 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



the estuaries of the large islands to the southward and eastward, 

 such as Hispaniola and Porto Rico. However, Urban up to recent 

 times did not know of their existence in those two islands, since he 

 refers to their fruits as brought from South America to Porto Rico 

 by the currents (Symbolce Antillance, IV., 131, 1903-11). Writing 

 about 1885 Hemsley remarked that it is quite possible that these 

 palms exist in Jamaica (Chall. Bot., IV., 303) ; but Morris a few years 

 later wrote that on account of their striking appearance and the 

 peculiarity of their entire leaves these palms, if they existed in the 

 island, " could not fail to be noticed " (Nature, January 31, 1889). 



Manicaria saccifera is essentially a palm of the Amazon estuary, 

 its native name being Bussu or Ubussu. Spruce tells us that it 

 abounds on both banks of the Lower Amazon (Notes of a Botanist, 

 etc., I., 56). Martius, as quoted by Hemsley (Ibid.), writes that it 

 is abundant on the banks of the Amazon estuaries, but is not known 

 from the interior of the continent. Bates observed many of the 

 fruits afloat in the sea about 400 miles off the mouth of the main 

 estuary of the Amazon, mingled with much drift brought down by 

 the river (The Naturalist on the River Amazons, 1864, p. 461). The 

 Ubussu palm, as he also characterises it, is described by him as growing 

 on land overflowed by the tide in the estuaries of that great river 

 (Ibid., pp. 69, 139). These palms play the same role in the Lower 

 Amazon that is taken by Nipa fruticans in the estuaries of tropical 

 Asia and Malaya. 



According to Sloane's Natural History of Jamaica (II., 186) these 

 fruits in his time (the close of the seventeenth century) were fre- 

 quently cast up on the Jamaican beaches, and were amongst the 

 West Indian drift thrown up by the " Currents and Seas " on " the 

 north-west islands of Scotland." He refers to Petiver's description 

 and figure in his Gazophylacium Naturce (tab. 64, fig. 3, p. 6), where 

 it is mentioned as a fruit " from about Cartagena in America." 

 Hemsley quotes Sloane in this connection (Chall. Bot., IV., 303), 

 and reference for further particulars should be made to his pages. 



Doubtless the fruits of this palm have since been often found on 

 European coasts, but seemingly they have rarely been identified. 

 There is but little ground for believing that the drifting fruits ever 

 retain the germinative capacity when stranded on the shores of 

 Europe. I became very familiar with these drift fruits in various 

 localities of the West Indies, widely removed from each other, and 

 formed the conclusion that, as far as concerns the disposal of the 

 species, the floating fruit would be quite ineffective except in the case 

 of very short 'sea traverses. 



The fruit is one to three lobed, and has an outer almost woody 

 warty or fuberculate covering, rudely suggestive of some coniferous 

 fruit, a covering that is soon lost in the drift. Plukenet's description, 

 as quoted by Hemsley (Ibid.), of the fruit cast up on the coasts of 

 Barbados — fructum externo cortice denudatum — is true of the great 

 majority of the stranded fruits on West Indian beaches, and would 

 apply to all fruits stranded on the shores of Europe. But at times, 

 as on Jamaican beaches, and on very rare occasions in the Turks 

 Islands, one finds a fruit with its " cortex " more or less intact. 



