CHAPTER X 



miscellaneous plants (continued) 



MORINDA ROYOC, L. 



According to the data supplied by Grisebach, Hemsley, and 

 Millspaugh this plant has a wide distribution in the warm regions of 

 the New World, principally at or near the coast, or, as Hemsley 

 puts it, " usually growing in maritime districts " (Chall. Bot., II., 38). 

 The following are the insular and continental localities given : Ber- 

 mudas, Florida, Bahamas, Cuba, Isle of Pines, Cayman Islands, 

 Jamaica, Haiti, Honduras, and Panama. 



I was only familiar with it in Jamaica, where it was noticed in 

 different localities near the beach on the north coast. Grisebach 

 states that it was found by all collectors along the sea-coast of that 

 island. But here it may also grow inland. Thus it was observed 

 by me at the roadside a mile or two at the back of St. Anne's, and 

 600 or 700 feet above the sea. In South Florida, according to 

 Harshberger, it is an inland plant of the " banana holes " and of the 

 "hammocks" (Trans. Wagner Inst., Oct. 1914). Millspaugh says 

 that it occupies scrublands and pine-barrens in the Bahamas (Prcenunc. 

 Baham.), and doubtless it often grows a considerable distance from 

 the coast. According to the same botanist, it is known as " rhubarb ' ' 

 in the Caymans and in the Bahamas. In the first-named islands it 

 is employed medicinally in the place of that drug, and it furnishes a 

 yellow dye. In its use as a dye plant it resembles Morinda citrifolia 

 in the Old World, which has long served this purpose in the East. 



Its usual maritime station also links it with Morinda citrifolia, 

 but there are other important similarities from the standpoint of 

 dispersal. The Asiatic plant and the genus as a whole are dealt 

 with from this point of view in my work on Plant Dispersal. It is 

 there remarked that though the fruit of M. citrifolia soon decays 

 when afloat, the woody, hard pyrenes possess great buoyancy, which 

 they owe to a large bladder-like cavity, probably, according to 

 Schimper, a modified seed-chamber. Though the pyrenes of M. 

 royoc are smaller, they have the same characters and behave in the 

 same way, their great floating capacity being connected with pre- 

 cisely the same structure. Some of them which I placed in sea- 

 water were all afloat and sound after five weeks, and gave promise 

 of floating unharmed for many months. It is probably to this 

 floating capacity of the pyrenes that the species owes its station at 

 the sea-coast; and in this respect it is to be placed in the same 

 q 225 



