MISCELLANEOUS PLANTS 



211 



by jthese reptiles, Long Cay and Greater Sand Cay, were the two on 

 which the plant was observed growing in greatest abundance. 



To my surprise the fruits approaching maturity, though still hard, 

 floated buoyantly, the floating power lying in the thick rind or 

 pericarp, which is protected by a tough skin. Four of them were 

 placed in sea-water, where they floated for three weeks, when they 

 becran to rot and the seeds commenced to fall out and sank. If we 

 allow for the fruits floating in fragments a few days longer, it is prob- 

 able that a month would represent the limit of the floating capacity. 

 One such fragment I found washed up on the beach of Grand Turk. 

 However, the hard fruits could only be torn off from the plant during 

 hurricanes. The mature soft fruit, if it did not sink at once, would 

 break up afloat in a few days. The plant seems to be quite useless, 

 and could owe but little directly to human agency in its dispersal. 

 However, the present islanders carry the living iguanas from island 

 to island for purposes of food, a practice probably followed by the 

 Caribs, and any of the hard seeds in the stomachs of these reptiles 

 would thus be distributed. 



Grias cauliflora (Anchovy Pear tree) 



Known as the Anchovy Pear tree, Grias cauliflora is one of the 

 most picturesque trees in the river scenery of Jamaica; and from 

 many points of view it is amongst the most interesting, its " cauli- 

 flory ?? at once attracting attention. The genus was originally 

 established by Linnaeus from this Jamaican tree, as first described 

 under its popular name by Sloane in his book on the natural history 

 of that island (Vol. II., p. 123, etc. ; table 216). Unfortunately Miers, 

 when he wrote his monograph on the Lecythidacece (Trans. Linn. 

 Soc, XXX., 1875), to which the genus belongs, was not acquainted 

 with the fruit. Yet the fruit, as will be shown, plays an important 

 part in the distribution of Grias cauliflora along the same river 

 system. 



In Jamaica it grows, as Sloane observes, by the riverside. It may 

 be noticed both on the banks and in the shallows and even on the 

 slopes of waterfalls. As observed by me, it thrives on the banks of 

 the Black River and of the Cabarita River above the mangroves 

 and on the sides of streams in the district south-east of Negril, as 

 well as in similar stations on the north side of the island. At the 

 Roaring River Falls it grows not only at the brink of the falls, but 

 in the wash below them, as well as half-way down their face, where 

 the fruits have caught in the crevices of the calcareous tufa en- 

 crusting the declivities. Harshberger (p. 678), when in this locality, 

 noted that the trees grew directly in the water, their seeds having 

 germinated in the tufa. It may here be remarked that Sloane's 

 statement that the Spaniards used to eat the pickled fruits as a 

 substitute for mangoes may perhaps supply an explanation of the 

 popular name of the tree. The mature fruits would be singularly 

 unfitted for food, and doubtless the young fruits were thus employed. 



Grisebach gives Jamaica as its only habitat in the West Indies, 

 and mentions no other West Indian species. I have not been able 



