INTEREST OF ISLAND FLORAS. 97 



ing for their chance, for room and light and sun, and with 

 the felhng of the forest trees had eagerly grasped it. 

 Young cocoanut trees, planted out with mathematical 

 precision, were being strangled and crowded by a jostling 

 throng of these last poor plants, which had never had suck 

 a chance for ages. It was as much as the islanders could 

 do to keep them down and give their crops elbow room 

 and breathing space. 



Again, the sun-bathed edges of the wide belts of forest, 

 which had been left to form a protection from the winds 

 round every clearing, were simply groaning with a tangled 

 mass of creepers which one did not see in the old-time 

 woods. Vast curtains of blue convolvulus made great 

 splashes of colour upon these dull-green tapestries which 

 hung pendant from above. 



And birds too, as we have already seen, had even 

 found their way to these clearings from distant islands ; 

 and flew about in flocks, in a locality where up till quite 

 recent times they had been utter strangers. 



But the plants which have been accidentally introduced 

 by man, and the birds which chance winds have lately 

 blown here, are of little interest when compared with the 

 problems of the real indigenous flora of these little islands. 

 It is a thousand pities some one does not go to Swan 

 Island and make a catalogue of all the native plants and 

 trees, before they disappear beneath the onslaught of 

 foreign interlopers and the rude effects of man's occupa- 

 tion. Looking back now, we exceedingly regret that 

 we did not make collections and more notes of this 

 indigenous flora. One does not want to be a full-fledged 

 botanist to be able to appreciate the immense interest 

 of it. 



For we must recollect that for every kind of plant on 

 Swan Island, from the great satin-wood tree with its 

 spreading branches and massive trunk to the water-weeds 

 in or around the one pond of fresh water, or to the humble 

 fungus in the woods ; there is the fascinating problem to 

 be solved, to be conjectured upon, to be pondered over, 



G 



