78 
Flora 0 /Narcondam and Barren Island. 
The question is, when did they first appear ? Hume and Ball landed in 1873 
at the very spot where they are now so plentiful, yet no mention is made by either 
writer of their presence. As Ball speaks of some of the species observed at this 
Bay, and as Hume describes the Coco-nuts seen by him, shortly after, at the Cocos, 
it is hard to believe that the trees were there in 1873. Again, Mallet makes no 
reference to them in 1884; the maps accompanying his account indicate that he 
and Hobday landed at Anchorage Bay, and he may not therefore have seen the large 
grove at Coco Bay ; but those at the beach where he landed should have been 
evident to him. Mallet’s paper is however confined to the geology and topography 
of the island, and hardly alludes to its vegetation. But Hume, Ball, and Mallet are 
equally silent regarding the Coco-nuts on Barren Island which we know to have been 
present in 1866, for they were seen by the Andaman Deputation—whose report has 
been already referred to (p. 56)—behind a beach, to which they still seem confined. 
As these three writers failed to notice Coco-nuts in Barren Island, where we know 
they existed at the time of these visits, there is no reason why Coco-nuts should not 
have been present then in Narcondam also. The Andaman Deputation in their 
Report (Proc. As. Soc., Beagf., 1866, 215)., say : “We brought fi'om Port Blair with 
“ us a number of Cocoa-nuts, Plantain trees, and Pine-apple cuttings, and these 
“ we planted on the ground from which the grass had been cut, in hopes that 
“they might be of use to some future visitors.”* We have seen, in connection 
with some of the species in this list, that the same deputation visited Narcondam 
also, though it did not report on that island j nothing therefore is. more pi'obablo 
than that the deputation did there what it had done on Barren Island, and that 
to its members belongs the credit of having introduced, at least, the Plantains. But 
the Coco-nut trees are so much more numerous, and so much larger on Narcondam 
than on Barren Island, that one finds it difiicult to think they only date from 1866. 
It is unfortunate that the deputation did not find it necessary to report on Narcondam 
as well as on Barren Island ; had they done so, there is little doubt the report would 
have mentioned any Coco-nuts that were present. However, even if the Coco-nut 
trees were already there in 1866, the writer is inclined to think that their origin 
must still be due to introduction by some previous visitor. 
The Coco-nuts on Barren Island may be supposed to have originated from nuts 
swept up by a strong surface-current that fiows from the south-west, and that 
therefore would bring drift from the Nicobars where Coco-nuts are plentiful. But 
it is more likely that the trees have been introduced, though involuntarily, by man. 
For though there is reason to believe that no one has ever landed at this particular 
beach, this bay affords the only safe anchorage in the island, and it is therefore more 
probable that these trees have sprung from nuts that have fallen overboard from 
* There was no trace of any of these in the locality indicated during the 
writer’s visit, a circumstance not surprising; because, in the first place, the situation 
is not over-suitable for such species, and, besides, goats have been since then in¬ 
troduced into the island ! It may be mentioned that no one at Port Blair in 1891 
knew of the existence of Coco-nuts in Narcondam, and the writer consequently took 
a number with him in order to plant them, only to find the act unnecessary. And, 
bearing in mind the state of affairs in Great Coco {Journ. As. Soc., Beng., lx, pt. 2, 
315), he also took fruits of Carica Papaya for the same purpose. Should, therefore, 
subsequent visitors find this species established in the island, they are hereby re¬ 
lieved of the necessity of inventing an hypothesis to explain the circumstance. 
292 
