6 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of its tiny white and very sweet-scented flowers. But, at least in 

 tropical places, it is a dangerous enemy, because of the extraordinary 

 rapidity of its growth, which enables it, if it once gets a chance, to 

 smother herbage and busli and tree, till it lies over all other plant 

 growth much as a heavy and much drifted snowfall does in our own 

 country. 



I should have liked to say a good deal about the sensitive plant " 

 (Mimosa pudica), which has spread in Fiji, as in most similar places, 

 almost as rapidly as the other ' ' introduced weeds ' ' I have mentioned ; 

 but I can only stop to point out that, whereas in its other new homes 

 it is generally looked upon as an unmitigated pest, it is welcomed and 

 encouraged in Fiji as a first-rate fodder plant. It is very remarkable, 

 but I know from personal experience that it is true, that cattle eat 

 it readily and with good effect, despite the large woody and curved 

 thorns with which the adult plant is provided. The seed now fetches 

 a high price for planting purposes; and an effort is being made to 

 select a strain with the fewest possible thorns. 



Nor must mention be omitted of two other introduced plants. 

 Melastoma malabathricum L. — locally called ' Kester's Curse,' after 

 the unfortunate planter who is accused, I believe falsely, of having 

 accidentally introduced it, with coffee plants from Ceylon — is now a 

 pestilent weed in the cattle pastures, and has apparently no redeem- 

 ing qualities. Again, over most of these introduced things, as well 

 as over many of the native plants, a very familiar looking Dodder — very 

 like our English plant — is rapidly spreading. It is the most difficult 

 of all to eradicate; for the tiniest fragment of one of the threadlike 

 stems is able to reproduce the plant in wonderful masses and at the 

 shortest notice. 



Before reaching the top of the hill towards which we have been 

 travelling all this while, the traveller will pass through some original 

 forest, but only comparatively little of it; and even from this little 

 most of the big timber has been cleared out. As a matter of fact, it 

 is not worth our while to linger over this part of the forest ; for— and 

 this is a fact to be noted — the native trees and other plants to be seen 

 here, interesting as they are, are almost all identical with those to be 

 seen further up along this slope of the range. It is true of Fiji, as 

 I believe it is of most of the other and similarly conditioned South Sea 

 Islands, that though there is a "montane flora" this consists of but 

 comparatively few species, and it is confined (very strictly) to the 

 few and isolated highest peaks, and that everywhere else — i.e., from 

 near the tops of the highest mountains down almost, and sometimes 

 quite, to the edge of the sea, the same plants prevail. It is only on 

 crossing the highest range — i.e., on passing from the wet side to the 

 dry — ^that one notices any great change in the prevailing plants. 



At Colo-i-Suva, which is the name of the point nine miles from 

 Suva, towards which we have been travelling, our road brings us to the 

 crest of the range of low hills (say, 700 feet at this point), from which, 

 but for the trees, we could look backward down on to Suva harbour. 



