FOREIGN DRIFT OF THE TURKS ISLANDS 147 



for this species the synonym, Enallagma cucurbitina (Baill.), adds 

 Panama to the list of localities (Symb. Antill., IV., 567). 



Gourds of Crescentia, more especially of C. cujete and C. cucurbitina, 

 characterised the beach-drift examined by me in Jamaica, Turks 

 Islands, and Trinidad. These three localities are sufficiently removed 

 from each other to justify the inference that Crescentia gourds are 

 generally characteristic of West Indian beach-drift. Numbers of 

 fruits both from the living plant and from the drift were examined 

 by me, and all of them belonged to this genus; and the implication 

 arises that the gourds and calabashes carried by the currents from 

 the New World to the shores of Europe would be fruits of Crescentia. 

 The mode in which these fruits get within the influence of the currents 

 is well illustrated in the Black River district of Jamaica. Both the 

 trees named grow there at the riverside above the mangrove forma- 

 tion. Their fruits form regular constituents of the floating drift, 

 and are carried down to the sea in numbers, many of them being 

 subsequently cast up on the beaches in the vicinity of the estuary. 



The next matter to be dealt with concerns the station of these 

 two species of Crescentia. The Calabash tree, C. cujete, occurs both 

 wild and cultivated in Jamaica ; but the natives distinguish the wild 

 trees at a glance by their smaller fruits and by other characters. 

 Grisebach supplies no station for the species; but Hemsley after 

 giving its general distribution states that it grows commonly in swampy 

 and marshy places (Chall. Bot., II., 55). It was in such stations that 

 I usually found the wild tree in Jamaica; but it also grows there in 

 the open woods of the lower levels. It came under my notice most 

 typically as a tree of the interior of the Great Morass of the Black 

 River district in this island, where it is associated at the riverside 

 amongst other trees with Grias cauliflora (Anchovy Pear tree). Both 

 Grias cauliflora and the Calabash tree, in bearing flowers and fruits 

 on their trunks, exhibit the same feature of " cauliflory." Sloane, 

 writing of the Calabash tree in Jamaica near the close of the seven- 

 teenth century, says that " it grows everywhere in the Savannas 

 and woods of Jamaica and the Caribes " (II., 173) ; but he makes no 

 reference to its being cultivated. Urban, speaking of its general 

 station in the West Indies, states that it grows in woods and is also 

 cultivated (Symb. Ant., IV., 567). That the tree can thrive in dry 

 stations is illustrated in the Virgin Islands, where it is associated 

 with Cactacece and other xerophilous plants (Harshberger's Phytogeog. 

 N. Amer., p. 687). 



Crescentia cujete is readily propagated from shoots; and it is on 

 its powers of vegetative reproduction that the Jamaican cultivator 

 seems to rely, the seeds according to common report being useless 

 for the purpose. The fleeting vitality of the seeds is pointed out 

 below. Crescentia cucurbitina, the other species represented in West 

 Indian beach and river drift, is the " Paki " of the Jamaican. It 

 was observed by me as a tall tree growing on the banks of the Black 

 River above the mangroves, and also in wet ground near the coast 

 below the Roaring River Falls on the north side of the island. 

 Grisebach gives its station in Jamaica as the dry rocky coast. This 

 is rather puzzling, since it is essentially a tree that favours moist 



