Notes on Botany of Laysan Island 
Period of Survey 
Comments 
Dec. 1936 (Notes on plants from observations of Wm.F.Coultas and 
Toshio Asaeda ’who landed on Laysan from the yacht Zaca 
The information below is in the files of E.H.Bryan Jr. 
At the Bishop Museum. ) 
Vegetation cover fairly continuous except on the sandy outer beaches. 
Plant s, 1936 
2 coconut palms near old houses 
1 ironwood tree near old houses 
k ironwood trees on north side of lagoon 
Bunch grass, Eragrostis variabilis, "coming back" on rim. 
Sesuvium around margin of lagoon especially at north. 
Makalua sedge, Cyperus laevigatus , at northwest bend of lagoon. 
Scaevola at south end waist high 
Ipomea pes-caprae, abundant on S.W. beaches 
Tribulus at northwest on outer beach 
Chenonodium (a few small bushes) 
Scattered patches of tobacco at south and near old houses. 
April 7, 9 
(Notes from Wetmore f s Journal) Two coconut trees in front 
>f the larger house 1 had in some strange way weathered 
uhe brunt of the encroaching sand and stood free though 
more or less bent and scarred.... walked out across the 
island around the lagoon. Low areas here that are probably flooded after 
rains were covered with a mat of Sesuvium , a pig weed like plant that was 
making a brave struggle against the depredations of the rabbits.... The Sesuvium 
in damp localities near the lagoon can spread its root system and produce a 
few leaves in spite of the attacks of the mammals .... [April 101 Turning 
inland along the sand [from the north end of the islandl we came down toward 
the lagoon. A patch of green proved to be a tract grown to tobacco where the 
scattered stalks apparently proof against attack by rabbits grew two or three 
feet high. Scattered little plants of the same species were noted elsewhere. 
Frigate birds and boobies nested in the tobacco... I noted a second patch 
of Sesuvium along the lagoon and Mr. Fullaway brought in a plant of a legume 
Tribulus cestoides . [April 111 This forenoon I walked north along the beach 
to the northern point of the island and then returned along the inner rim.. 
At one point there were growths of Scaevola lobelia (formerly Koenigii ) 
barely holding their own. Normally a shrub four or five feet high here the 
plant merely protruded gnarled and twisited limbs above the sand which had 
drifted in and covered their trunks. Only those persisted that grew near the 
crest of the slope that came up from the beach where the dand was blown away 
from them to some extent. Most of the limbs were bare and denuded of bark. 
A few still viable produced scant bunches of elliptical fleshy leaves snipped 
by the rabbits or other agencies. To add to their difficulties a colony of 
frigate birds were choosing nest sites among their scant branches.... 
Mr. Caum has plant seed supplied me by Mr. Judd of ironwood Casuarina 
equisetifolia and Milo Thespesia populnea [above sentence in message to admiral! 
:tMsy 1! Schlemmer instructed to set out the grass brought from Ocean and 
Pearl and Hermes Reef, said that the albatross were very curious about it and 
pulled up part of it. [Note on Kure said grass was pulled to take back to Laysan 
for planting. [May 3! Scaevol a lobelia is found along the crest of the hill 
