BOTANY OF THE LACCADIVES. 
81 
islands. . That they do hold some may be surmised from the presence in 
Minikoi of one species, Andlema ovalifolium, which is found in India only, not 
appearing even in Ceylon or in any of the other Laccadive Islands. It is, of 
com’se, not impossible that this is a bh’d-introduced species, in which case its 
peculiarly hmited area of distribution is difficult to explain. As regards Kadamum, 
the same remarks apply to the even more restricted Oyperus hyalinus; perhaps, 
however, this species may not be in South India so rare as we at present think. 
So far as their general distribution goes, 26 (40 °/o) of the weeds are cosmo¬ 
politan in the tropics—a few have not been reported from the Mascarene Islands, 
though they occur in Africa itself ; other 10 are nearly cosmopolitan, being 
present hi both hemispheres—of these, 4 are absent from Polynesia, 2 from 
Australia, 3 from Austraha and Polynesia, and one, which is confined to 
South-Eastern Asia and America, from Africa also. Altogether, therefore, 36 
of these species, or 56 °/o of the weeds, occur in the tropics of both hemispheres. 
Of the species absent from the new world, there are 2 which extend from the 
Eastern Hemisphere to Polynesia, and 2 more that extend to Australia without 
reaching Polynesia. As many as 11 species, or 17 °/o of the weeds, are com* 
mon to Africa and South-Eastern Asia ; but 4 of these are African only in the 
sense that they occur as weeds, no doubt introduced from India, hi Mauritius. 
Of the whole, 13 species, or 20 °/o of the weeds, are confined to Asia ; all 
of them occur in India, though it is noteworthy that no fewer than 9 of 
them appear to be mikuowu in Ceylon ; this being so, we are not sm'prised to 
find that 14 of them are unknown in Malay countries. 
Considering next the species of the “ sylvestrian” class as opposed to those 
introduced by human agency, we expect that as the islands appeared above 
sea-level, they must first have afforded a footing for littoral species. Such 
plants could scarcely in point of time be preceded even by species of the 
wiud-hitroduced class, while the conditions on the islands would be much 
more favourable for sea-introduced than for wind-introduced ones. Introduction 
by buds could only become active after species of the other classes had been 
established and had rendered the islands sufficiently attractive and conspicuous 
for birds to alight on them. We anticipate, therefore, that of the three kinds of 
species mentioned the httoral sea-introduced class should be comparatively 
numerous, the other classes relatively scarce. This expectation is fully borne 
out by the facts. 
The coast-flora includes 41 unequivocally sea-introduced plants, and forms 
a fifth, or 20 %, of the entire Flora. Of these 41 species, 12, or 29 (nearly 
a third), are cosmopohtan on tropical seashores. Of the remainder, 11 species, or 
nearly 27 °/o, extend from Polynesia to these islands, no fewer than 9 of them 
extending further west to Africa, or the Mascarene Islands, or both. There are 
3 species that do not extend further east than to Austraha and 13 that do not 
381 
