BOTANY OF THE LACCADIVES. 
9 
Wind-swept sand-bank absolutely devoid of any vegetation * It is 
therefore clear that, whether the Tatdcum of Lieut. Wood’s list 
r'efeis to this reef or to Cherbaniani, the islanders misinformed him 
when they assured him that it produced coco-nuts. Perhaps, how¬ 
ever, the people of Anderut, who probably do not themselves visit 
this reef, seeing this is a British and not a Cannanore possession, 
only knew that the island was visited periodically, without being 
aware whether the visits were paid in order to obtain coco-nuts or 
merely for fishing and egg-collecting. 
South-east of Pirmalpar between Lon. 72® 10' and 72° 20' E. and 
between Lat. 10° 50' and 10° 57' K lies the large atoll of Akati, the 
most westerly of the inhabited islands and the only inhabited island 
of the western chain of peaks. This atoll, which encloses a large 
lagoon inside which vessels of some size find an anchorage, was 
visited in 1875 by Mr. Hume, who describes the reef as somewhat 
shoulder-of-mutton shaped, the knuckle to the south-west with 
Akati itself in the middle of the knuckle, and with two small un¬ 
inhabited islands, Bangaro and Tangaro, towards the edge of the 
blade at the north-east corner. The barrier reef is high and 
strongly marked on the north, north-east and more than half the 
eastern side, where, Mr. Hume thinks, there are some points bare 
at high water ; elsewhere it is much lower, a considerable portion 
being covered even at low tide, and being pierced by deep ship- 
channels in several places.f Mr. Hume also mentions a sand bank 
which is devoid of vegetation; this is probably the Akati Feti 
(No. 1 7) of Wood’s list. Mr. Hume landed on Bangaro (Bangaram, 
Wood) which he describes as “ a mass of vegetation down to the 
“ water’s edge, dense with cocoanuts above and screw pines below,” 
the undergrowth being also very dense; the plants growing with 
a luxuriance that ‘^contrasted strongly with the generally-stunted 
“ growth of the same species on Betrapar.” The plants that 
Mr. Hume collected were mainly those he had not already obtained 
or noted in Bitrapar ; the specimens belong to 10 species, all save 
one of which {iSetaria verticillata) might have been introduced by the 
2 B L 
* Hume, “Stray Feathers,'’ rol. iv., p. 351. 
t Hume, “ Stray Feathers,” vol. iv., 451. 
309 
