282 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



the breakers of the open ocean. Plants with difficulty establish 

 themselves on the beaches and on the necks, being liable to be swept 

 away in the storms. When they take refuge on the more elevated 

 portions of the island they are exposed to the violence of the hurri- 

 canes. Numbers of dead prostrated trunks of Suriana maritima 

 lay on the surface over the island during my visit, the victims mainly 

 of the last hurricane two or three years before. 



Yet, with the exception of the low connecting sandy tracts, where 

 plant growth is scanty or almost absent, the surface is fairly well 

 vegetated. Owing mainly to the extensive disintegration of the 

 aeolian sandstone the surface of the more elevated portions is largely 

 covered with sand which is not less than seven or eight feet in depth 

 in places, and thus affords a good burrowing ground for the large 

 iguanas which abound. But the vegetation is what is termed of 

 the scrub kind. If we were to give a brief description of the plant- 

 arrangement we should say that the sandy soil is carpeted with 

 Ambrosia criihmifolia, Cyperi, and coarse creeping grasses (Cenchrus 

 echinatus, etc.), whilst clumps of Suriana maritima and thickets of 

 Genipa clusiifolia frequently dot the surface. Borrichia arborescens 

 also grows in numerous colonies on the sandy portions and as indi- 

 vidual plants where the ground is rocky, as on the southern headland. 

 Cactuses of the Opuntia type abound, but the Turk's-head Cactus 

 did not come under my observation. 



All the above-named plants come down to the beach in places; 

 but the most characteristic beach plants are Tournefortia gnaphalodes 

 and Euphorbia buxifolia, species that seem able to hold their own 

 on the most exposed beaches in these islands. Other typical beach 

 plants such as Sccevola plumieri, Ipomoea pes-caprce, and Cakile 

 lanceolata appear to be not so well adapted in this respect. The 

 two first-named species were only represented by a few young plants 

 growing amidst the beach-drift and a little above it on the east 

 side of the principal isthmus. Of Cakile lanceolata I only found 

 a solitary clump in the same locality. When the seas break across 

 the low sandy necks during heavy weather most of the beach plants 

 that have obtained a temporary footing are washed away. Sesuvium 

 portulacastrum, a plant that is usually characteristic of beaches in 

 this group, only presented itself in a solitary patch on the eastern 

 beach. Uniola paniculata was scantily established on the lee or 

 western side of the island. 



Cotton Cay. — Coming to the larger inhabited islands I will first 

 allude to Cotton Cay. There is a house on the island, but it is not 

 permanently occupied. However, sheep roam over most of its area, 

 and " cultivations " of different kinds have been from time to time 

 established and abandoned. I was not therefore disposed to take a 

 special interest in this Cay, and limited my examination to a traverse 

 across its centre and to a visit to the wind-swept eastern extremity 

 where the original vegetation promised to be least disturbed. The 

 island is about one and one-third miles long, 700 yards broad, and 

 about forty feet high in the " rises " of seolian sandstone. But much 

 of its area is low, the surface being in places rocky and around the 

 two small central lagoons loamy and sandy. These lagoons are 



