52 MISS L. S. GIBBS ON THE FLORA AND PLANT FORMATIONS 
is now so difficult to realise only date a few years back. The old “ Fort,” 
as it is called, is still standing, built on stones and constructed to repel 
treacherous attack. 
A bamboo rest-house was built with the advent of the * rentis " on the 
opposite side of the river, and just below it is a secluded bathing-pool, near 
which a projecting bank was covered with the handsome coriaceous fronds 
of Photinopteris speciosa. — Celogyne Dayana and Appendicula rupicola were 
brought in by the natives. 
. 
The native bamboo houses are dotted about the close-cropped green-sward 
of this ideal spot, with coco-nut and Areca palms waving over them. From 
each side of the flat, lawn-like river-banks which limit the valley, rise the 
steep mountain-sides through which the river has cut its way, clothed in 
secondary jungle where too steep for cultivation ; but otherwise many small 
chalets mark the extensive hill-padi cultivation. 
From Kiau we passed through young jungle and old and recent clearing ; 
but on leaving Koung a fine secondary forest clothed the sandstone hills, 
which run up to 2000-3000 and which are skirted by the “ rentis." The 
native track keeps to the bed of the Tampussuk, which it crosses and 
recrosses several times, following the line of the river, and it is still always 
used by natives. 
Between Koung and the Kabayo old rest-house were many fine Lucalyptus 
trees, probably of the same species as that seen near Renagong, but neither 
in flower nor fruit ; other trees present were Decaspermum paniculatum, 
Randia densiflora, Perrotettia alpestris var. philippinensis, with small white 
flowers, the yellow-flowered Garcinia Motleyana, Clerodendron infortunatum, 
and Macaranga hypoleuca var. borneensis, the latter in fruit. 
As undergrowth, Aralia feroz, 6 m. high, and Dioscorea pyrifolia in fruit 
only, with the herbaceous Pellionia kabayensis, Pentaphragma viride and 
Selaginella Willdenowii, were general. On one steep bank I found a mass of 
Marchantia emarginata showing vegetative proliferation of both d and ç 
sporophores. It was associated with the moss J/thacelopus acaulis and a 
small Zriocaulon sp. 
At about 500! huge biocks of waterworn granite are exposed, lying uncon- 
formably in the sandstone, which shows how the hills have been cut down to 
their present level by the river, a fact also remarked on and referred to by 
Spencer St. John (7. 242). Hatton (11. 225) also mentions that it is a 
tradition of the natives that the Kinabalu mountains extended as far as the 
coast many years ago. 
After Ghinambur, where one stops for the night, Sterculia campanulata, in 
leafless condition, was suedding its green flowers ; and as we rode out of 
the jungle on to the open plains of the Tampussuk Parkia Roawburghii 
reappeared, with the weeay upgrowth that heralds human habitation. Here 
