MISCELLANEOUS PLANTS 



245 



the beaches along the east coast of Tobago ; and in the company 

 of the same plant together with Guilandina bonducella and Hippo- 

 mane mancinella it grows at the margin of the beach south of St. 

 George's Harbour in Grenada. 



There can, therefore, be but little doubt that Thespesia populnea 

 behaves like an indigenous strand plant in the West Indies. If 

 its exclusion from the proper flora of the New World is based on the 

 assumption that the genus has its home in the eastern hemisphere, 

 then we should have to exclude such a typical West Indian beach 

 plant as Sccevola Plumieri and such representative West Indian 

 swamp plants as Rhizophora mangle and Carapa guianensis. 



Against the view that it is truly American are to be urged the 

 facts that the tree has not established itself amongst the new vegeta- 

 tion of the Florida sand-keys and is regarded as introduced into 

 Bermuda (Chall. Bot., II., 22). It is, however, widely spread over the 

 Pacific, occurring in some of the most remote islands; and it is 

 difficult to imagine how a characteristic shore tree that is of no great 

 use to man and is exceptionally suited for dispersal by currents 

 could owe its wide distribution, except in a secondary sense, to 

 human agency. 



In the Turks Islands the tree gave me the impression of being 

 indigenous, though now it could merely be viewed in the light of 

 a survival, since it came under my notice only in the northern part 

 of the island of Grand Turk. Here it grows gregariously inland 

 on one side of the hollow known as the North Wells, but it also grows 

 on the borders of the neighbouring coast. I should imagine that 

 originally the tree thrived around the lagoons on the beach behind 

 the mangroves, as it often does in the Pacific. In Grand Turk and 

 Salt Cay the salt industry has led to the destruction of most of the 

 original vegetation on the lagoon shores, and Thespesia populnea 

 was probably involved in this clearance. 



In the West Indies one not uncommonly finds Nature engaged in 

 distributing this plant. The dried baccate capsules and the seeds 

 are not infrequent in beach-drift, the fruits liberating by their decay 

 the buoyant seeds, which are readily swept off by the waves. In 

 some localities in Jamaica I noticed seedlings growing freely in the 

 stranded drift. 



It is strange that notwithstanding its capacity for dispersal by 

 currents this tree is stated by Lefroy to have been introduced by 

 man into the Bermudas (Chall. Bot., II., 22). In this matter it is in 

 the same category as Hibiscus tiliaceus, which, as before pointed out, 

 is not included in the indigenous flora. In many respects, as in 

 its general distribution as a littoral tree in the warm regions of the 

 globe, in its fitness for dispersal by currents, and in the wide preva- 

 lence of the same native name in the Pacific islands, it raises the same 

 issues as Hibiscus tiliaceus ; but there is this difference, that it is 

 not of such great use to man, at least among the Pacific islanders, 

 and the uncertainty whether it owes much to human agency in its 

 distribution, a matter to which Hemsley refers (Chall. Bot., IV., 235), 

 is for this reason more pronounced than with the other tree. 



Since I did not deal connectedly with this tree in my previous 



