328 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



different ways. Most of the endemic genera are berry- 

 bearers and thus offer the means of dispersal by fruit- 

 eating birds. The endemic species of the genus Lobelia 

 have sometimes very minute seeds, which might be carried 

 long distances by wind, while other species, especially 

 Lobelia gaudichandii, have a " hard, almost woody capsule 

 which opens late," apparently well adapted for floating 

 long distances. Afterwards "the calycine covering 

 withers away, leaving a fenestrate woody network " en- 

 closing the capsule, and the seeds themselves are " com- 

 pressed, reniform, or orbicular, and margined," and thus 

 of a form well adapted to be carried to great heights and 

 distances by gales or hurricanes. 



In the other orders which present several endemic 

 genera indications of the mode of transit to the islands 

 are afforded us. The Araliacea^ are said to have fleshy 

 fruits or drupes more or less succulent. The Eubiacese 

 have usually berries or drupes, while one genus, Kadua, 

 has " small, flat, winged seeds." The two largest genera 

 of the Labiatse are said to have " fleshy nucules," which 

 would no doubt be swallowed by birds.^ 



Antiquity of the Haiuaiiaoi Fauna and Flora. — The 

 great antiquity implied by the peculiarities of the fauna 

 and flora, no less than by the geographical conditions and 

 surroundings, of this group, will enable us to account for 

 another peculiarity of its flora — the absence of so many 

 families found in other Pacific Islands. For the earliest 

 immigrants would soon occupy much of the surface, and 

 become specially modified in accordance with the condi- 

 tions of the locality, and these would serve as a barrier 

 against the intrusion of many forms which at a later 



^ Among the curious features of the Hawaiian flora is the extraordinary- 

 development of what are usually herbaceous plants into shrubs or trees. 

 Three species of A^iola are shrubs from three to five feet high, A shrubby 

 Silene is nearly as tall ; and an allied endemic genus, Schiedea, has 

 numerous shrubby species. Geranium arboreum is sometimes twelve feet 

 high. The endemic Compositse are mostly shrubs, while several are trees 

 reaching twenty or thirty feet in height. The numerous Lobeliacege, all 

 endemic, are mostly shrubs or trees, often resembling palms or yuccas 

 in habit, and sometimes twenty-five or thirty feet high. The only native 

 genus of Primulaceee — Lysimachia — consists mainly of shrubs ; and even a 

 plantain has a woody stem sometimes six feet high. 



