Frits Jensen's Pacific Plant Collections

Abstract

Summary. Specimens made by Samuel Whitmee's collector, Frits Jensen, are discussed. Those labelled Niue are not all from that island and some, e.g. a sheet of Dysoxylum bijugum, were collected on Lifou, Loyalty Is. Records for Niue attributable to Jensen alone, including Myopor- um niueanum St. John, based on such a specimen, which is referable to M. tenuifolium Forster f., are mostly based on material also collected on Lifou. INTRODUCTION: MELIACEAE OF NIUE According to the most recent account of the flora of Niue (Sykes 1970), the only truly native Niuean plant referable to Meliaceae is Dysoxylum mollissimum Blume sensu lato (D. forsteri of Sykes). However, during the preparation of a monograph of the genus Dysoxylum, specimens representing two species of the genus allegedly collected on Niue have been seen: they are preserved in the British Museum (Natural History), bear labels 'Niue or Savage Island, Friendly Islands', '1876' and were collected by Frits Jensen. One of them, numbered 47, is a specimen of D. mollissimum but the second, an unnumbered one, is referable to D. bijugum (Labill.) Seemann. If that specimen is accur- ately labelled, it represents a remarkable extension of the range of the species as D. bijugum is thought to be restricted to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands and Norfolk Island (Mabberley 1988), far to the west. FRITSJENSEN AND SAMUEL WHITMEE The answer to this riddle resides in the fact that Jensen was employed by Samuel Whitmee at the time. The Reverend Samuel J. Whitmee (1838 -1925) was an important figure in the history of the London Missionary Society's activities in Samoa and wrote books and papers on the western Pacific. In 1870, he visited Baron Ferdinand von Mueller in Australia and by 1872 was making a collection of herbarium material of Samoan plants for him, whilst sending seeds of palms, in which he took a deep interest, to Kew