Dedication
TO THOSE NUMEROUS PERSONS TO WHOM I WAS INDEBTED FOR
GREAT KINDNESS AND ASSISTANCE DURING MY
SOJOURN IN HAWAII AND FIJI
PREFACE
Although this volume contains a great amount of original material, I am largely indebted to the labours of my predecessors for its present form; and a scheme that at first was limited only to my own observations in the Pacific has gradually extended itself to the general subject of plant-dispersal. The farther I proceeded in my work the more I realised that the floras of the Pacific islands are of most interest in their connections, and that the problems affecting them are problems concerning the whole plant-world. Deprived of the writings of Seemann, Hillebrand, Drake del Castillo, and other botanists, several of whom have lived and died in the midst of their studies of these floras, and without the aid of the works of Hemsley and Schimper, generalisers who have mainly cleared the way for the systematic study of plant-distribution and plant-dispersal, it would not have been possible for me to accomplish such an undertaking.
My interest in plant-dispersal dates back to 1884, when, whilst surgeon of H.M.S. Lark, in the Solomon Islands, I made some observations on the stocking of a coral island with its plants, which were published in the Report on the Botany of the “Challenger” Expedition. In 1888 I followed up the same line of investigation during a sojourn of three months on Keeling Atoll, and during a journey along the coasts of West Java. But realising that as yet I had barely touched the fringe of a great subject, and that several years of study would be required before one could venture even to appreciate the nature of the problems involved and much less to weigh results, I took advantage of the circumstances of my life to make, between the years 1890 and 1896, a prolonged investigation of the plants of the British flora, mainly from the standpoint of dispersal by water. This involved the study of the seed-drift of ponds and rivers and of the plants supplying it, a study which brought me into close relation with aquatic and sub-aquatic plants. This line of investigation led me into contact with many other aspects of plant-life; and as time went on my field of interest extended to the plants of dry stations and to the bird as an agent in plant-dispersal. Only a few of these results have been published, as in the journals of the Linnean Society and of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh as well as in the pages of Science Gossip. They lie for the most part still within my note-books, and fitly so, since I regarded such studies chiefly as a preparation for the investigation of the general question of plant-dispersal.
When again, in October, 1896, I found myself once more in the Pacific, the subject was taken up again with zeal; but my larger experience had only increased my diffidence, and the unknown looked so overwhelming that I settled down for the next three years content with merely making experiments and recording observations. Here again the main problem was attacked through the study of seed-buoyancy, and gradually it led me to the systematic study of the mangroves and of the beach-plants, whilst my inland excursions brought me into familiarity with the plants of the interior. My geological exploration of the island of Vanua Levu, in Fiji, greatly assisted me by giving a method to my botanical examination of the island.
Whilst working out my geological collections in England, in the years 1900-1902, I devoted an hour or two daily to the elaboration of my botanical notes and to a consideration of the problems concerned. During a winter in Sicily I took up again the subject of the beach-plants; and after the publication of the volume on the geology of Vanua Levu I was able to accomplish a plan, for years in my dreams, of visiting the eastern shores of the Pacific. During a period of three months from December, 1903, to March, 1904, I examined the littoral flora of the west side of South America at various localities between Southern Chile and Ecuador; and finally completed this investigation by comparing the shore-plants on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the isthmus of Panama. Returning to England with a fresh collection of data, I passed many months in elaborating and arranging all my notes, waiting vainly for a clue to guide me in framing a scheme by which I could bring the results of many years of work into some connected form. At last I decided once again to take the floating seed as my clue, and without any prearranged plan I allowed the work to evolve itself. Now that it is finished, I can see some obvious defects; but if any other plan had been adopted I scarcely think that I should have been more successful in piecing together in a single argument materials resulting from so many years of research and relating to so many aspects of plant-life.
Yet the final object of a naturalist would be but a sorry one, if his aim were only to write a treatise and append his name to it. His personal faith lies behind all his work; and no one can pursue a long line of study of the world around him without rising from his task with some convictions gained and some convictions lost.