FOREIGN DRIFT OF THE TURKS ISLANDS 157 



from Easter Island about 1773 was regarded by Seemann in his 

 Flora Vitiensis (p. 47) as belonging to this species; and there would 

 seem to be some reason for believing that the species is indigenous 

 in the Marquesan and Tahitian Groups, in the floras of which it is 

 included by Drake del Castillo in his work on those islands. Both 

 Hawaii and Fiji have each a peculiar species; but I would refer the 

 reader to my book on Plant Dispersal (pp. 325, 332) for an account 

 of the difficulties connected with the distribution of the genus, and 

 to Hemsley's remarks in the Botany of the Challenger Expedition 

 (IV., 304) for an authoritative discussion of this point. If, as Hemsley 

 observes, there are two or three Asiatic species closely allied to 

 Sapindus saponaria, it may be that we are here concerned with one 

 variable plant that ranges through the warm latitudes of the globe. 

 In any case we are here dealing with a plant that is well worth 

 studying from the standpoint of dispersal. 



Although, as stated below, the seeds of Sapindus saponaria have 

 been found in the stranded drift of Jamaica, the Turks Islands, the 

 Bermudas, and the Azores, it does not seem to be a littoral tree in the 

 ordinary sense. Schimper (Ind. Mai. Strand Flora, p. Ill) remarks 

 that it ought to be a strand plant in the New World ; but Grisebach 

 gives no particulars as to its station, and I did not observe it amongst 

 the shore vegetation in Jamaica. Writing of the tree in Jamaica, 

 Sloane observes (IL, 132) that it grew in his time in all the " lowland 

 or Savanna woods " of the island. It is, indeed, a tree of the open 

 woods; and this is also the station assigned to it by Millspaugh in 

 the case of the island of Cozumel, off the coast of Yucatan (Plantce 

 JJtowance). From such a station its seeds would at times get into 

 river-drift and be carried to the sea. In those seemingly rare 

 localities, where as an intruder from the inland districts the Soap- 

 berry tree grows by the beach, the dispersal of its buoyant seeds by 

 currents would be facilitated. This would be the case in Florida, 

 where, as Prof. Harshberger tells me, the plant grows on the sandy 

 beaches of the peninsula. 



An interesting record of the occurrence of the seeds of this tree in 

 beach-drift is that described by Hemsley, on the authority of J. M. 

 Jones, in the case of the Bermudas (Chall. Bot., IL, 27; IV., 304). 

 The plant is rare in those islands, having been first raised from seed 

 washed up on the southern shores in 1841. It must thus be viewed 

 only as a recent addition to the Bermudian flora ; but the important 

 point is that the seed preserved its germinative powers after a period 

 of flotation in the sea that must have covered several weeks, if not 

 months, though man's aid was necessary to secure the establishment 

 of the species. A few seeds came under my notice amongst the drift 

 stranded at Paroti Point on the south coast of Jamaica. Though 

 the tree is common in the island, this was the only locality in which 

 I found the seeds in the beach-drift. The seeds examined had sound 

 kernels and floated in sea-water. I picked up two others amongst 

 the stranded drift on Greater Sand Cay, the southernmost island of 

 the Turks Group; but they were afterwards mislaid, so that their 

 soundness was not tested. Though occurring in scanty numbers, 

 the seeds of Sapindus saponaria may, I think, be claimed as one of 



