THE FLORA OF THE TURKS ISLANDS 279 



be about 800 yards long and a cable (200 yards) broad; but these 

 dimensions appear to me rather excessive. Its surface, which is 

 largely of bare rock, much honeycombed in some places and slabby 

 in others, is scantily vegetated. Having no beach worth mentioning 

 it receives the full brunt of the breakers, which have forced a passage 

 near its southern end where there is a natural arch. In rough 

 weather the seas deposit drift in the middle of its breadth. The 

 principal plants growing on it were Tournefortia gnaphalodes, Borri- 

 chia arborescens, Suriana maritima, Portulaca oleracea, Sesuvium 

 (two species), and a little Euphorbia buxifolia. On the lee side in 

 its southern portion there was a large patch of Opuntia, where Frigate- 

 birds were nesting in numbers. 



Long Cay, like Penniston Cay, is a long and narrow flat strip of 

 seolian sandstone, raised twenty-five or thirty feet above the sea 

 and possessing one or two small beaches. It, however, receives the 

 full force of the breakers on its north-eastern side, and portions of 

 the original island now form islets at its extremities. As delineated 

 in the Admiralty chart its length would be about a mile and its 

 maximum breadth about 400 yards. However, I paced its width 

 in the broadest portion and did not make it much over 120 yards. 

 The surface is mainly of bare rock, covered, however, with sand 

 thinly in places. 



Though much of its area had no covering of vegetation there 

 were considerable portions occupied by plants, especially on the lee 

 or south-western side, where there were extensive thickets, four 

 to six feet high, of the Seven-year Apple (Genipa clusiifolia), both in 

 fruit and in flower, mingled in places at the seaward margin with 

 Coccoloba uvifera. Next in frequency, growing semi-prostrate, 

 or clambering over the rocks, was a variety of Conocarpus erectus. 

 This is probably the form " procumbens " of Jacquin; but its 

 occurrence is chiefly limited to the weather or eastern extremity 

 of the island, to which the epithet " wind-swept " fitly applies ; and 

 doubtless it is a station variety. Millspaugh found this form in the 

 Bermudas and on the coasts of Yucatan, and describes it in his 

 Plantce Utowance (Field Columb. Mus. publ.). Borrichia arborescens 

 should also be reckoned as one of the most frequent of the plants 

 on this cay. Most of the common beach plants of these islands are 

 here represented, sometimes on the rocky portions, sometimes on 

 the sandy parts, such as Tournefortia gnaphalodes, Suriana maritima, 

 Ipomoea pes-caprce, Euphorbia buxifolia, Sesuvium portulacastrum, 

 etc. But Sco3vola plumieri, which never came under my notice 

 on these small wind-swept cays, was not observed. Where a thin 

 covering of sand lies on the rock, the surface is almost carpeted with 

 Ambrosia erithmifolia associated with Cyperus brunneus. Near the 

 north-west end of the island Rhachicallis rupestris forms an extensive 

 patch of scrub one and a half to two feet in height. We learn from 

 Dr. Millspaugh (Prcenunc. Baham.) that this plant grows on maritime 

 rocks throughout the Bahamas and is " often the only vegetation 

 on many of the sea-washed islets." 



We now pass from our description of the small rocky cays of seolian 

 sandstone possessing but little beach, and swept over a large portion 



