Explanation of Abbreviations.—The capital letter following the name indicates my authority, which is not necessarily the oldest in each case: B = Beal; D = Darwin; G = Guppy; K = Kerner; S = Scott Elliot. The respective works quoted will be found at the end of this volume. The papers of Darwin quoted will be found in Journ. Linn. Soc., “Botany,” vol. i., 1857, and in the Gardeners Chronicle for 1855.
The asterisk is placed before those genera of which other species examined by me exhibited no mucosity; these species are Arabis hirsuta, Viola canina, V. palustris, Matricaria inodora, Senecio aquaticus, Veronica agrestis, V. arvensis, Nepeta cataria, Dracocephalum canariensis.
II. Plants with Seeds or Seed-like Fruits which in my Experiments only exhibited Mucosity in a Slight Degree, becoming merely “Sticky” or Adhesive when placed in Water.
Arabis albida, Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, Lamium purpureum (occasionally), Thymus sp., Juncus bufonius, J. communis, J. glaucus, J. squarrosus.
III. Plants with Seeds or Small Fruits that exhibit Adhesiveness in the Dry State and are apt to stick to one’s fingers.
Adenostemma viscosum, Lycopus europæus, Piper Macgillivrayi, &c. One may include here also Lagenophora (see page [276]) as well as the familiar instances of Pisonia (page [347]) and Boerhaavia (page [356]).
NOTE 44 (page [121])
On the Effects of Inland Extension on the Buoyancy of the Seeds or Fruits of Littoral Plants
When in Fiji I experimented on the buoyancy of the following beach-plants that had extended far into the interior of Vanua Levu, as will be found described in [Note 22]. Those tested were Cassytha filiformis, Cerbera Odollam, Ipomœa pes capræ, Morinda citrifolia, Premna tahitensis, Scævola Kœnigii, and Tacca pinnatifida. In all but Cerbera Odollam, where I contented myself with establishing that the fruits floated buoyantly in sea-water, the experiments were prolonged for many weeks and often for several months; and in some cases, as with Ipomœa pes capræ, three or four experiments were made on seeds from different inland localities. The result was to establish in all cases that the floating powers were as great with the inland as with the coast plants of the same species; nor could any structural difference of importance be noticed. It should be observed that there is every reason to believe that the “talasinga” plains of Fiji have been occupied by the intruding beach-plants for many ages.
NOTE 45 (page [122])
Tabulated Results of the Classification, according to Schimper’s Application of the Natural Selection Theory, of the Buoyant Seeds and Fruits of the Tropical Littoral Plants on the Basis of the Structural Characters concerned in Buoyancy
| Region. | Classification of species. | Proportion of non-adaptive and adaptive species. | Total number of species dealt with. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-adaptive. | Adaptive. | ||||||||
| First group. | Second group. | Third group. | Percentage of non-adaptive species. | Percentage of adaptive species. | |||||
| Number. | Per cent. | Number. | Per cent. | Number. | Per cent. | ||||
| Pacific Islands | 27 | 40 | 10 | 15 | 30 | 45 | 55 | 45 | 67 |
| Pacific Islands, tropical America, and Indo-Malaya | 28 | 35 | 12 | 15 | 40 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 80 |