194 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



Fawcett and Rendle, it may be found on the seashore and inland 

 at elevations up to 3000 feet. Disregarding its inland stations, I 

 will here refer to my observations on its occurrence at the coast 

 on this island and to those of others in the West Indies and in West 

 Africa. It is instructive to notice its associates, and they are suf- 

 ficiently varied to cause reflection. At Falmouth (Jamaica) it grew 

 on the drier ground of the coast flats behind the Batis-Salicornia- 

 Sesuvium association of the muddy borders of the mangrove belt, 

 and in the company of Guilandina bonducella, Coccoloba uvifera, 

 and Borrichia arborescens. On the south side of the island, to the 

 east of the Black River and opposite the Salt Lakes, it grew on a 

 strip of sea-beach fronting the inland marshes in the society of a 

 Pancratium, and served as the host of a conspicuous yellow-coloured 

 Loranth (Phoradendrori). In the Virgin Islands it is found amongst 

 the trees bordering the beach, such as Coccoloba uvifera, Hippomane 

 mancinella, and Thespesia populnea ; and in the Bahamas it grows 

 on Watling Island behind the Tournefortia-Suriana association in 

 the company of Genipa clusiifolia and Coccoloba uvifera (Harshberger, 

 Phyt. Surv. N. Amer., pp. 686, 690). On the beaches of South 

 Florida and on the dunes in their rear Coccoloba uvifera, the Seaside 

 Grape, is still the constant associate of the Coco Plum, Chrysobalanus 

 icaco, an association on which light may be thrown when we deal 

 with the plant first named (Harshberger, vide infra). 



But it is apparent that Chrysobalanus icaco is also a characteristic 

 plant of the great fresh- water morass of the Everglades in the heart 

 of South Florida. There it thrives in the patches of forest, known 

 as the " hammocks," that rise up in the midst of the swamps and 

 serve as sanctuaries for the West Indian vegetation that ages since, 

 when the region of the Everglades was submerged beneath the 

 Gulf Stream, occupied low islands rising up in a shallow sea. It is 

 at home also in this swampy interior at the edge of the cypress 

 swamps and at the borders of streams. In the company of such 

 typical West Indian littoral and estuarine plants as Hippomane 

 mancinella (Manchineel) and Anona palustris, Chrysobalanus icaco 

 has been for ages a denizen of the Everglades (Harshberger in Trans. 

 Wagner Inst., Philadelphia, 1914, pp. 67, 70, 135, 172 ; and Phyt. 

 Surv. N. Amer., 1911, pp. 230, 698). 



In the tropics of the African West Coast, where the Coco Plum 

 is stated to be very common, it figures as a characteristic littoral 

 plant. Writing of the coast near the mouth of the River Nun, Dr. 

 Vogel observed in his journal that " the strand is clothed with 

 jungle close to the sea, consisting of Chrysobalanus icaco and Ecasta- 

 phyllum brownei," the last named being also a West Indian littoral 

 shrub (W. J. Hooker's Niger Flora, 1849, pp. 35, 336). 



In the dispersal of this species both birds and currents have played 

 a part. Although its fruit would attract pigeons and birds of similar 

 habit, we could only appeal to such an agency in the case of inter- 

 lsland dispersal. The protection of the relatively thin-walled stone 

 would of itself be insufficient to enable the seed to withstand with- 

 out injury a sojourn of several hours in a bird's crop, and this 

 unfitness would be emphasised by the imperfectly filled hole at 



