Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/22

 6 SOME NEW BRITISH MARINE ALdM. It will be of interest to compare the above list, very imperfect as it is, with that for the neighbouring group of coral islands, the Laccadives, of which Dr. Prain has given an exhaustive account in a valuable paper.* This group consists of sixteen or seventeen islands off the Malabar coast of Peninsular India, the most easterly of tbem being only 120 miles from it, and they are extended between 10° and 14° N. lat. Several of the islands are much larger than any of the Maldives, and appear to possess a richer and more varied flora. As many as 192 species of Phanerogams are included in Dr. Prain's list, of which 50 are cultivated, leaving 142 wild species. Yet it is remarkable that in the above list of 40 wild Maldive plants as many as 15 are not in this much more extensive Laccadive list ; these are the following: — Vitis Lmncei, DoUchos Lablab, Cassia aiiriculata, C. Sophera, Adenanthera pavonina, Sonneratia acida, Pemphis acidnla, Oldenlandia umbellata, Jasimnum sp., Justicia procumbens, Vitex Negundo, Nothoscerva brachiata, Fimbristylis spathacea, Zoysia pungens, Macqranga tomentosa. Of these, Son- neratia, Pemphis, Oldenlandia, Fimbristylis, and Zoysia are littoral plants, and the others, except Vitis Linnai, mostly weeds or escapes from cultivation. Minikoi I. is included politically with the Laccadives, but it is isolated in 8° 30' N. lat., and is thus rather nearer the Maldives, and it has also a Maldive population. It is five miles long by half a mile broad. It has a rich flora, and no less than forty-five of the species included in the Laccadive list are recorded from it only. Of these, seventeen or eighteen are cultivated plants, and nine or ten of these are also cultivated in the Maldives ; Triphasia trifoliata and Termi- nalia Catappa are, however, considered to be wild in Minikoi. It is probable that many of its plants have been imported directly from Ceylon, there having been much intercourse with Colombo, especially during the building of the great lighthouse. Some sixty species are given for Minikoi which are not as yet recorded for the Maldives, but many doubtless occur there, such as the littoral species Suriana maritima, Canavalia obtusifolia, Sesiivium,, Wedelia biflora {W. scan- dens Clarke), Ochrosia borbonica, Ipomcea biloba, Boerhaavia diffusa (B. repens), and Thuarea sarmentosa, and many weeds of cultivation. The only Minikoi plant absent from Ceylon is Canavalia turgida (which is doubtfully a distinct species), with a wide range as a littoral plant in the Eastern Tropics. SOME NEW BEITISH MARINE ALO^. By E. a. L. Batters, B.A., LL.B., F.L.S. In this Journal for 1896, pp. 274-276, I gave a list of the more important species of Chlorophycece and Phaophycece added to the British Marine Flora during the last twelve months ; the present « Memoirs and Memoranda ' (1894).
 * Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. v. and vi. (1892-3), reprinted in his