-52-
AECD-3446
Partial fruit sterility was noted in Morinda citrifolia with small, shrivelleg
fruits, as mentioned above.
Complete sterility was noted in some plants of Cen-
chrus echinatus (St. John 23, 783),
FEATURES OF THE FLORA
OF ENGEBI.
The original flora of Engebi may not now be clearly reconstructed.
Long
ago, because of economic exploitation, much of the area had been cleared and
planted to coconuts,
Then the Japanese military forces developed a base on the
island with roads, a railroad, barracks, warehouses, trenches, artillery positions,
pillboxes, and an airbase with airstrip running from the northwest point the full
width of the islet to the east beach. In the war, American bombing and shelling
did much destruction,
Then the American military forces captured and occupied
it and redeveloped it as an airbase and, with bulldozers, nearly completed clear-
ing the area.
Not until after these destructive actions was the vegetation studied
briefly by Bryan in 1944 and by Fosbergin 19468.
collected by Bryan are now apparently extinct:
Pandanus
Cocos nucifera
%
Pisonia grandis
Wedelia biflora ("a yellow composite vine")
Similarly the following species collected in 1946 by Fosberg seem now to
be extinct:
‘
Eleusine indica
Setaria verticillata
“x PyBek, SOP eae
Omitting the cultivated garden plants, the following species observed or
wot
,
“, ee
Fleurya ruderalis
Soe
Portulaca samoénsis
Eo &
Pisonia grandis
wf
‘
Euphorbia Atoto
Tribulus cistoides
Pluchea odorata
Vernonia cinerea
:
The atomic bombing brought further destruction and in 1949 only twenty
species were found on the islet. Of these, specimensof the following seven speci® "
Z
ayes
gNTVERTY Oy
Lew nie:
ayy
Aunty. OF
AVL:
‘
A ls 4
Lo
ed
Ae
: