are extensively cultivated in districts beyond European or even Arab influence. Thus the absence of, certain plants capable of growing in a region may enable us to judge how long the inhabitants have been isolated from the portion of the world wherein these plants are found. The eagerness of the Maoris to obtain new seeds and roots was sometimes taken advantage of by unprincipled persons. Darwin informs us that at the Bay of Islands dock-seed was sold to the natives for tobacco; thus the country became overrun with this troublesome weed as far back as 1835.* “Voyage of a Naturalist.” Darwin. We may from this safely conclude that the very few foreign plants the Maoris had in cultivation was entirely owing to a want of opportunity to obtain more. Apé (Alocasia macrorhiza, or Arum macrorhizum).—As this species is found wild throughout the Polynesian and Malay Islands, it was probably brought into cultivation in some portion of the region. It is also found wild and cultivated in Ceylon and on the mainland of Asia; but the Malay names of the plant do not indicate its introduction from the continent. The apé, though producing a larger root than the taro, is not so extensively cultivated, owing to a bitter principle, which has to be expelled before cooking. Here we have another instance of a cultivated species being supplanted by an allied species having better qualities. The very early discovery of how to separate the noxious from the wholesome portions of vegetable substances accounts for so many poisonous plants being in the first instance brought into cultivation. Amongst the large number of European esculents, though many are unpalatable and indigestible before cooking, none can be considered actually poisonous, a fact doubtless due to a long process of selection carried on over extensive areas. Malay Apple (Eugenia malaccensis).—This species belongs to the Malay Islands, where it was brought into cultivation evidently at a remote period, judging by the number of varieties found. It was cultivated throughout the Polynesian islands in pre-European times, but had not extended its range to the Asiatic Continent or other portions of the tropical world. Another species, the Eugenia jambos, belonging to, and widely cultivated on, the mainland of Asia, was not found in Polynesia by Forster. We can thus see that the Malay Islands formed at some remote period an independent centre of cultivation, whence the species brought into use were carried eastward to Polynesia, but did not always extend themselves in other directions till long afterwards. The narrow latitudinal range of the breadfruit is probably