Pacific Science (1978), vol. 32, no. 3 © 1979 by The University Press of Hawaii. All rights reserved The First Collection of Hawaiian Plants by David Nelson in 1779. Hawaiian Plant Studies 55 1 HAROLD ST. JOHN 2 CAPTAIN JAMES COOK initiated modern sci­ On this mountain trip Nelson collected entific exploratory expeditions. He made good specimens and then dried them. On possible discoveries in distant lands in as­ return to England, they were delivered to Sir tronomy, botany, and in many other sciences. Joseph Banks, who deposited them in the On his first world voyage (1768-1771), Sir British Museum of Natural History, where Joseph Banks and Dr. Daniel Solander they were studied by Dr. Daniel Solander. gathered plant specimens, and Sydney Par­ Solander classified and named some ofthem; kinson made plant portraits so numerous many were new genera and all but II were that most of them are still unpublished. On new species. After Solander's death, his the second voyage, Johann Reinhold Forster successor, Robert Brown, studied the residue and Georg Adam Forster made good col­ of Nelson's collections. The generic names lections, and published them in two books. given were mostly like Ilicoides for Pelea, On the third voyage, there were two natu­ Hydrangeoides for Perrottetia, Cestroides for rabsts, William Anderson (surgeon's mate Bohea, Coffeoides for Gouldia, Tachitoides _on the_Resolution) and young_David Nelson, for--Myrsine, -lresinoides- for (;har-pentiera, gardener and botanist (on the second ship, Moroides for Neraudia, etc. That is, their the Discovery). Anderson made little pretense !licoides was like !lex, Hydrangeoides was at collecting plants, became sickly, and died like Hydrangea, etc., since the Greek suffix halfway through the voyage. -oides means "like unto." Presumably, both It was on this third voyage that Cook Solander and Brown intended eventually to discovered the Sandwich (= Hawaiian) Is­ coin new and appropriate names for these lands, and there that he met his tragic death. new gener.a, but they did not live long enough This account is written to make known the to do so. details of the plant collections on the island In 1935, the present author visited the of Hawaii made by Nelson. British Museum ofNatural History and made David Nelson was apparently kept on a prolonged search for the Hawaiian plants board the Discovery nearly all the 25 days collected by Nelson. No list of the collection the ships were anchored in Kealakekua Bay, had been kept, so the only way to find them on the "kona," or leeward side of Hawaii was to comb the herbarium in likely families Island. Ewan (1974: 70) states that "Nelson and genera. The greatest difficulty encoun­ had at least two weeks of good exploring for tered was that many of the specimens had plants ... ," but that seems to be incorrect. been filed under these original, but un­ His only chance to botanize was during the published, names, such as Cestroides and excursion initiated by John Ledyard, which Coffeoides. The search took 4 weeks in 1935 spent 4 days in an attempt to climb Mauna and a week in 1974. Found were 136 species, Loa [not Mauna Kea, as stated by Ewan and probably there are still a few more to be (1974)]. A full account of this ascent is given turned up. That was a very commendable in St. John (1976a:3-4). collection for a young apprentice botanist in those days. In the two centuries since Nelson's col- lection was made, many botanists have visited I Manuscript accepted 3 February 1976. 2 Bernice P. Bishop Museum, P.O. Box 6037, Hono­ the "kona" side of Hawaii. They made col­ lulu, Hawaii 96818. lections, studied them, and reported upon 315 316 PACIFIC SCIENCE, Volume 32, July 1978 them, and thus the great majority of the local collected there by Banks and Solander. The endemic species were distinguished and pub­ Oxalis produces quantities of tiny seeds lished. However, the writer found a residue (Knuth 1930) which can be blown, and when of unclassified ones in the Nelson collection. ejected will cling to persons or objects. About This totaled 15 species and 1 variety (St. oxalis corniculata Ridley (1930: 654) writes, John 1976b). Since none of these plants has "This little creeping plant is very widely been collected again, and as the area above spread all over the world, mainly by human Kealakekua is densely settled, and because agency. It is certainly a native of Southern of the extensive coffee plantations at higher Europe, and was described by Clusius as altitudes, and due to the extensive grazing coming from that region in 1549. In most by domestic and by feral animals, it is con­ parts of the world it is known only from sidered certain that all of these 16 Nelson greenhouses and cultivated land.... The novelties are extinct. They are included in capsule is explosive, and contains a large the following enumeration. number of small seeds, which probably get Evidently, after Nelson's return to the into pots or among the soil attached to plants, Discovery, he wrote and delivered to Capt. in which it is conveyed across the globe.... Charles Clerke a "List of Plants." This con­ It is absent from islands not cultivated by tains 31 plants, with a generic name for each man, so that it seems clear that its seeds are (such as Artocarpus, Cocos), and an English carried about accidentally. It seems remark­ common name (such as bread-fruit tree, coco­ ably abundant in the Polynesian Islands, nut). This list is printed in Beaglehole (1967: where it appears to have been established 600-602) and in Ewan (1974:70-71) with before the advent of Europeans." --modem identifiGations. Nelson had GOHected --Ridley. (L9-30 :664=665) writes_ of-this_ spe­ ten of these plants; the 21 remaining are cies, "When ripe the seeds are surrounded based on his observations only. Many of by an abundant mucilage, and, according to these remainders were common economic Chauvel and Bullerstaedt, the mucilaginous plants cultivated by the Hawaiians, and his layer over the seed contracts and splits from observation of them is to be accepted. These the seed. The layer, drying, rolls up with species are marked with an asterisk in the rapidity as the mucilage contracts, and the enumeration below. seed is shot out much as the stone of a cherry Conspicuous in this list of observed plants, is when the fruit is pressed by the finger and as now identified, are Ludwigia octivalvis thumb.... The distances to which the seeds (Jacq.) Raven, Indigofera suffruticosa Mill., fly is about 2 or 3 feet, as far as I have seen Oxalis corniculata L., and Urena lobata L. in O. corniculata." My son-in-law, Robert The Indigofera, or indigo, was then a common T. Martin, knew of the shooting seeds, and and important crop plant. It was not found in his plant nursery on Maui showed me in Tahiti by Banks and Solander in 1769, and seeds adhering to the plastic wall as much as it was recorded as first introduced to Hawaii 5 feet from the ground. in 1829 by A. P. Sevier (Crawford 1937: 145). The weeds already established, and col- It did not succeed as a cultivated crop in lected by Nelson, are: Hawaii, but it seeded, dispersed, and became Thelypteris interrupta (Willd.) Iwatsuki a weed. It was first collected here by the Digitaria setigera R. & S. botanists H. Mann, Jr. and W. T. Brigham Waltheria indica L. in 1864. Nelson certainly knew indigo when Merremia aegyptia (L.) Urban he saw it, and his observation of it is not to Of these, the Thelypteris and the Ludwigia be qUf~stioned. His record of the indigo in (long known as Jussiaea) mentioned earlier Hawaii in 1779 is amazing and inexplicable. are characteristic of wet habitats. The first The other three plants mentioned above one is still abundant, but grows almost are simply weeds. Oxalis corniculata and wholly in abandoned taro patches. It forms Urena lobata are common tropical weeds; a dense thicket. The spores or seeds of both they were present in Tahiti in 1769 and were plants could have been close to growing taro ! 1,!1f !Q¥m 51ff¥fiR*· 4b*!f1Me'UIRfM ;; $I;;;; Sigl Hawaiian Plant Studies 55-ST. JOHN 317 in Tahiti, and could have been in the mud to tell which plant was collected by which packed around the taro corms in transit to botanist: Hawaii. Gossypium tomentosum Nutt. Other weeds are characteristic of ruderal Sida Nelsonii St. John habitats and could have been carried on the Cheirodendron trigynum (Gaud.) Heller Polynesians' clothing or belongings. Wal­ Euphorbia celastroides Boiss. in A. DC., theria has prickly fruits that can adhere to val'. Nelsonii St. John objects. Digitaria abounds about pig pens; Astelia Menziesiana Sm. it produces a multitude of seeds that are A number of the sheets have the data: small, flat disks and can adhere to anything "Sandwich lsI., Capt. Cook's 2nd & 3rd moist. Voy." These present no problem, since Capt. The seeds of the Oxalis, Urena, and Wal­ Cook visited the Sandwich Islands only on theria would adhere ifthey touched the plum­ his third voyage, and they are certainly a age of birds, so that bird transport is a part of Nelson's collections on Hawaii. possibility for them. The Urena has tiny According to Britten (1916:351), "Nel­ fruits covered with barbed prickles. The son's Sandwich Island plants are cited in the Ludwigia was not collected in Tahiti by Flora Vitiensis [that is, by B. Seemann].... " Banks and Solander, but there is no reason In this great flora, Seemann cited a number to doubt Nelson's observation in Hawaii.