FOREIGN DRIFT OF THE TURKS ISLANDS 131 



own experience, and bearing in mind Grisebach's remark that it 

 is uncommon in Jamaica, it would appear that, widely distributed 

 as it is over this region, it is rarely frequent. Mucuna urens seems 

 to be three or four times as common, and this difference, as we shall 

 see, is reflected in the story of the stranded drift. 



In the West Indies it climbs the lofty trees of the inland forests, 

 and especially favours the river-bank and the lake-side in wooded 

 districts, so that its seeds are likely to drop into inland waters and 

 to be carried down to the sea. But it also grows amongst the trees 

 lining estuaries, though it could not in this region be placed amongst 

 the typical coastal plants. The locality in which I especially studied 

 this species was on the forested slopes of the lake and effluent of 

 the Grand Etang in Grenada at elevations of 1800-2000 feet above 

 the sea. Doubtless it finds its station on the densely wooded banks 

 of the great rivers of Venezuela, the Guianas, and tropical Brazil; 

 but it is not easy to find direct references to its station in those 

 regions. However, Bentham, ascribes to it a station in woods 

 near rivers in the Amazon area, and mentions the Rio Negro in this 

 connection (Flora Brasiliensis of Martius, vol. 15, part 1). In tropical 

 West Africa it finds its home near the coast and at the riverside 

 (Hooker's Niger Flora.) 



The seeds, though less frequent than those of Mucuna urens, 

 were found by the writer to be characteristic of beach-drift in Jamaica, 

 the Turks Islands, Grenada, Tobago, and Trinidad. They are 

 included in the Morris collection of Jamaican beach-drift in the Kew 

 Museum. Though those of Mucuna have often been recorded from 

 the drift stranded on European beaches, I have found no reference 

 to those of Dioclea reflexa. This is probably due in part to the cir- 

 cumstance that they have often been regarded as Mucuna seeds, 

 a confusion which is apparent in some of the older allusions to West 

 Indian drift on European beaches, and an instance is given below. 

 Except in size, the diameter being about an inch in both cases, the 

 appearance of such Dioclea and Mucuna drift seeds is dissimilar. 

 Whilst the two sorts of Mucuna seeds characteristic of European 

 beach-drift are orbicular in form, dark-grey in hue, and have a black 

 raphe nearly encircling them, the typical seed of Dioclea reflexa 

 shows black mottling on a light-brown ground, is squarish on one 

 side, and its raphe is limited to two-thirds of its circumference. 



That the seeds of Dioclea reflexa are to be included amongst West 

 Indian drift stranded on European beaches, will be now established, 

 but they are far less common than those of Mucuna. Probably 

 at least ten Mucuna seeds are washed ashore for each Dioclea seed. 

 Although the writer has not found one himself on this side of the 

 Atlantic, a sound seed of D. reflexa stranded on the Shetland Islands 

 was sent to him by Mr. J. Tulloch of Lerwick for his inspection. 

 Then there is the curious circumstance that Dr. James Wallace, in 

 his enlarged edition (1700) of his father's book on the Orkney Islands 

 (1693), substitutes a figure of a seed of a Dioclea, most probably 

 D. reflexa, for one of Mucuna given in the earlier edition, as though 

 they represented the same seed. Since the seeds of this species 

 of Dioclea are able to reach the Shetland Islands, it would seem highly 



