28 MISS L. S. GIBBS ON THE FLORA AND PLANT FORMATIONS 
cultivation, tangled areas of Miscanthus sinensis, Dipteris conjugata, Pteridium 
aquilinum, and Gleichenia viridissima were succeeded by secondary forest of 
recent growth. It is this area, in fact, which is alluded to by Burbidge 
(9. 95) as having been under dry-rice cultivation in 1877. Here Pitheco- 
lobium microcarpum was found in flower, Ficus Gibbsiee, with red receptacles, 
Itea macrophylla and Semecarpus Bunburyana about 3 metres high, with fine 
terminal racemes of white flowers supported by a whorl of large leaves at 
the ends of the lanky branches. Also Kibessia tessellata, collected by Havi- 
land at Koung, a most original plant with mauve flowers resembling Solanum 
Wendlandii in size and the colour of the corolla. Groups of gregarious 
palms clothed the sloping sides of streams, the slender Pinanga Gibbsiana 
being in flower and conspicuous with its red pendent fruit, while tree-ferns, 
markedly absent elsewhere, were another prominent feature, Angiopteris 
evecta, Cibotium barometz, Cyathea celebica, and Alsophila glauca being 
common everywhere. Curcuma Zedoaria, Medinilla speciosa, with the fern 
Didymochlana truncatula and the terrestrial orchids Spathoglottis aurea, 
Ascotainia borneensis, and Celogyne Sanderiana, formed part of the under- 
growth, which in many places consisted of bracken about 3 m. high that 
had to be beaten apart to allow of passing through, tufts of Lewcobryum 
javense dotting the ground underneath. 
Of epiphytic orchids the magnificent yellow Kria Gibbsie, forming big 
clumps on old tree-stumps, and Vanda Gibbsia, with shoots about 1 m. long 
and large yellow flowers, were very common. 
Above Kiau, recent jungle of immigration plants, with open buffalo 
pasture between, reached to about 4000’. This apparently is the limit 
of cultivation, at any rate at present, and also of the secondary forest. 
b. Gurulau Spur. 
Gurulau is a spur above Kiau, which was not visited by Haviland. Here 
primary forest began at 4000', but it was not very high, the slopes being 
too steep to allow of the full development of large trees. As the sides are 
clothed in thick forest, it was only possible to follow the ridge. Here the 
trees averaged 13-16 m., among them Urophyllum streptopodium, with green 
flowers, Mastivia trichotoma (?) white-flowered, the interesting mauve Ardisia 
Copelandii with flowers rather large for the genus, Viburnum vernicosum, 
Ardisia Zollingeri, Ficus Gibbsie, the red-flowered Loranthus Maxwellianus, 
so large in size and with such distinct flowers that I took it for a Heltcia 
and labelled it “a tree "—whilst Clerodendron kinabaluensis, with long 
wandlike branches terminated with pleasing white flowers, Rubus glomeratus 
with red berries, the red-flowered Dissochæeta rubiginosa and the terrible 
flagellee of Demonorops elongatus var. montanus, pushed their scrambling 
