yi FLORA OF THE VITIAN ISLANDS. 
diffused over Polynesia); whilst among the plants upon which the Maer: pruaioaly 
relied for food and clothing there are only five, the Taro, Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Sow- 
thistle (Sonchus asper), and the Paper-mulberry, also known in Viti before the arrival 
of Europeans; and these five the Maoris seem to have brought along with sheen pee 
they left their (conjectured) tropical home in the Raratonga group and eam parey s Island,* 
Europeans became first acquainted with Viti in the year 1643, when Abel Jansen 
Tasman, the celebrated Dutch navigator, discovered it, conferring upon it the name of 
Prince William’s Islands. But two centuries elapsed before this archipelago was more than 
a mere name in geographical science. Captain Cook, who sighted Vatoa (‘l'urtle) Island : 
Captain Bligh, of the ‘ Bounty,’ who passed twice through parts of this group; and Captain 
Wilson, of the ‘ Duff,’ whose vessel was nearly lost ou the reef off Taviuni, adding scarcely 
any but secondhand and vague information to our stock of knowledge. It was not until 
Viti had been visited by D’Urville, Belcher, and Wilkes that sound scientific facts began to 
accumulate. 
Captain Sir Edward Belcher visited Viti in 1840 in H.B.M.S. Sulphur. He was 
accompanied by Mr. B. Hinds and Mr. G. Barclay,—the former, surgeon, the latter, 
botanist of the expedition. ‘Their collections were principally made near the sea, about 
Rewa, in Viti Levu, and afterwards described by Mr. Bentham in the ‘ London Journal of 
Botany,’ Vol. II., and the ‘Botany of H.M.S. Sulphur.’ They were mostly species com- 
mon to other Polynesian islands, and few in number. A much more extensive collec- 
tion was made by the officers who accompanied the United States Exploring Expedition, 
commanded by Commodore Wilkes,—Messrs, Brackenridge, Pickering, and Rich; the 
importance of which has been enhanced by its having been placed in the hands of Pro- 
fessor Asa Gray, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has made known the greater portion 
of it in his “Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition,’ and the Proceedings of the 
* See Seemann’s ‘Journal of Botany,’ Syo, London, 1867, p. 215.—The following is a List of Plante 
common to Viti and New Zealand :-— 
Oxalis corniculata, Linn. Typha angustifolia, Linn. 
Dodonwa viscosa, Fors. Colocasia antiquorum, Schott, var, (cult.). 
Cucurbita Pepo, Lina. (eult.) Dianella intermedia, Zypd, 
Hydrocotyle Asiatica, Linn. Paspalum serobieulatum, Linn. 
Myriogyne minuta, Less, Pieris esculenta, Forst. 
Bidens pilosa, Zinn. 
Sonchus asper, ViiJ, 
Batatas edulis, Ohois. (eult.) 
Pisonia umbellifera, Seem. 
Broussonnetia papyrifera, Vent. (cult.) 
Schiziea dichotoma, Sw. 
Lycopodium cernaum, Linn. 
L. volubile, Forst. 
Psilotum triquetrum, Sw, 
The Hlatine of Viti, which was thought to be H, Americana of N 
and one of the Lemnas of Viti, 
L. paucicostata, Hegelm. The 
comparison can be made, 
ew Zealand, is £. ambigqua, Wight; 
which was thought identical with Z. minor of New Zealand, turns out to be 
Cryptogams will haye yet to be gone into more closely before any definitive 
