MISCELLANEOUS PLANTS 



227 



of Omphalea diandra owe their floating power to the same causes, 

 it is probable that this type of buoyancy is characteristic of the 

 genus (see p. 159). According to Grisebach and Pax (Pflanzenreich, 

 IV., 147, V.), Omphalea triandra has been found in Jamaica, Haiti, 

 and the Guianas. 



Sc^vola Plumieri (Vahl) and Sc. Kcenigii (Vahl) 



One of the most characteristic of the littoral plants of the West 

 Indies is Sccevola Plumieri. It is especially interesting from the 

 standpoint of distribution, since, as in the case of other genera 

 represented by littoral plants in this region, such as Rhizophora 

 (p. 141), Tournefortia (p. 247), and Carapa (p. 141), it divides with a 

 sister species the tropical shores of the world. In this case, however, 

 there has been unfortunately some confusion between the two 

 species, Sccevola Plumieri of the beaches of tropical America and 

 tropical Africa, and Sc. Kcenigii of the beaches of tropical Asia, Aus- 

 tralia, and Polynesia, a subject discussed in Note 5 of the Appendix. 

 But the matter has been cleared up by Krause in his recent mono- 

 graph on the Gocdeniacece (Das Pflanzenreich, IV., 277; 1912). The 

 confusion in the synonymy quite obscured the issues raised in the 

 matter of their areas of distribution. Now, as far as littoral plants 

 are concerned, Sccevola comes into line with the other three genera 

 above referred to. It puts much the same questions and raises 

 much the same issues ; yet the differences that occur are in themselves 

 full of suggestion for the future investigator. 



These two species, as I have said, occupy between them the 

 beaches of the warm regions of the globe, both insular and conti- 

 nental. As limited by Krause on pp. 18, 120, 121 of his memoir, 

 Sccevola Plumieri occupies the shores of the West Indian islands 

 and the eastern coasts of the American mainland from Florida by 

 way of the Bay of Honduras to the shores of Brazil, reaching as far 

 south as Rio de Janeiro. It extends northward to Bermuda. He 

 does not give any station on the Pacific coast of America; but 

 Grisebach and Hemsley record it from the Galapagos Islands (Flora 

 Brit. West Ind.; Chall. Bot., IV., 161); and according to Baron von 

 Eggers it is one of the " West Indian strand plants " that make up 

 the " sand-flora " of the coasts of Ecuador (Deutsche Geogr. Blatter, 

 heft 4, band 17, Bremen, 1894). Harshberger also gives La Paz 

 (lat. 24° N.) on the coast of Lower California as a habitat (Phytogr. 

 Surv. N. America, p. 639). Krause does not give many localities 

 for the West Indian side of Central America; but the Caribbean 

 shores of Mexico may here be mentioned as indicated by Britton 

 and Millspaugh in the manuscript of their Flora of the Bahamas, 

 and the last named specialty records it for the shores of Yucatan, 

 near Progreso (Plantce Utowance, pt. L). It is also implied by 

 Grisebach as existing on the Caribbean coasts. 



According to Krause, Sccevola Plumieri ranges along the West 

 African coast from Senegal to Benguela, or through nearly thirty 

 degrees of latitude (16° N. lat. to 13° S. lat), and along the whole 

 coast of East Africa from Somaliland to the Cape. Further east- 



