MISCELLANEOUS PLANTS 



215 



ranges and the second very restricted ones {Plant Dispersal, Chaps. 

 XIV., XV.). 



In Jamaica, like H. tiliaceus its sister species, H. elatus is known 

 as the Mahoe; but although when of small size it might easily be 

 taken for the other species without close inspection, it is typically 

 a much more imposing tree. Whilst that of H. tiliaceus is usually 

 from ten to fifteen feet in height, that of H . elatus is large and spread- 

 ing and often between thirty and forty feet high. It is also dis- 

 tinguished by its larger flowers, its hairy seeds, and by its deciduous 

 involucel and calyx, the loss of which gives the fruits a very 

 characteristic appearance on the tree. Its distribution in the West 

 Indies is evidently restricted, Grisebach giving only Jamaica and 

 Cuba. 



But its station is of peculiar interest, since in the comparison of 

 the two species from the standpoint of distribution it seems to offer 

 the only determining difference that one can connect with the great 

 contrast between the ranges of the two trees. In Cuba its habit 

 is evidently hygrophilous, since Harshberger quotes Fernow (p. 677) 

 as including it amongst the characteristic trees of the " wet " forests 

 on the weather slopes of the island, where " the atmosphere is nearly 

 saturated with moisture." Here it is associated with Calophyllum 

 calaba, a tall tree common in the mountain forests of the West Indies. 

 Grisebach merely states that in Jamaica it frequents the lower hills 

 and plains of the interior districts. I found it growing in young wood 

 in the Moneague district about a thousand feet above the sea and 

 within the zone of heavy rainfall. It came under my notice on the 

 banks of the Black River above Lacovia, where the river traverses 

 the foot-hills, the slopes being well wooded to the waterside with tall 

 trees of Cassia, Ficus, etc. It also extends for some distance on the 

 river border below Lacovia, where the river traverses the Great 

 Morass, a region of fresh-water swamps, where it accompanies on 

 the riverside Grias cauliflora, the Anchovy Pear tree. 



In Jamaica this is not a tree that finds a station amongst the 

 strand flora or with the xerophilous plants of the dry coastal plains. 

 In these respects it differs fundamentally from Hibiscus tiliaceus, 

 growing as it does under much moister atmospheric conditions in 

 upland regions and descending along the riverside where the wooded 

 hill-slopes reach the lowlands. It is probable that the station at 

 the riverside is connected with the buoyancy in sea-water of the 

 seeds, a principle enunciated in my previous work. The seeds, as I 

 found, are able to float unharmed for at least several weeks, though 

 their floating capacity is probably less than that of the seeds of 

 H. tiliaceus, where my experiments, as well as those of Schimper 

 (Ind. Mai. Strand Flora, p. 165), indicate a floating capacity of from 

 four to six months and more. 



Hibiscus elatus yields the celebrated Cuba bast, and is cultivated 

 for that commodity. In this respect it offers another point of resem- 

 blance to H. tiliaceus, which in its bast was one of the most useful 

 trees for the Pacific islander, supplying the materials for cordage, 

 nets, native cloth, etc. Since both possess seeds that could be 

 dispersed by currents, and since both would be regarded as useful 



