206 MISS L. S. GIBBS: А CONTRIBUTION TO 
above elothed the trunks and lower branches of the trees in the forest 
shade. 
This high forest runs up to about 3500 feet, the trees thinning out gradually 
and becoming smaller on the ridges, which, composed of the red volcanic 
soil, are always narrow knife-edges, with no breadth at all, sloping steeply 
down each side and only varying а few hundred feet in level. Woolnough 
(13) attributes this razor-back character to “the great rapidity of sub-aerial 
denudation occasioned by the torrents of rain." 
On these ridges there is a dense growth of small trees, like an overstocked 
plantation, in which Podocarpus elata. predominates, with Ziscocalyx fusca, 
Nanthophytum calycinum, Geniostoma rupestre, Graptophyllum Siphonostena, 
Psychotria griseifolia, and the interesting shrubby epiphyte Medinilla longi- 
cymosa. The splendid orange Dendrobium Mohlianum was here quite 
abundant, but rarely seen below 3000 feet. The delicate little Sarcochilus 
gracilis seemed also limited to that altitude, with //ydnophytum grandiflorum. 
Lycopodium Menziesii and L. serratum, with Elatostema sessile, were ridge- 
types of undergrowths ; also Habenaria superjlua, whose vivid green flowers 
with their spider-like segments were not observed lower down. 
These ridges are easily attainable by following up the streams, which usually 
start from a soak area just below their summit. "The soak areas are always 
marked by the huge frond-like shoots of Ælatostema macrophyllum, which 
runs up to 3000 feet. Once on the ridge progress is easy for miles, as the 
knife-edge gives а good idea of direction, a higher point here and there will 
afford a view, and if that is not sufficient the small trees come down easily. 
Often the edge will be broken down a few feet across where streams come off 
on each side. 
RAIN FOREST. 
The ridges are in many cases drier than the lower high forest, but in 
others where the aspect is south-east and the surface broadens out they 
partake more of the Rain Forest character. Then the difference is very 
marked. Luxuriant ferns form the chief undergrowth. Tree-ferns and 
palms like Exorrhiza Wendlandiana assert themselves, and down the 
south-eastern slopes the slender little palm, only known from Fiji, Balaka 
Seemannii, with a stem as thick as an average walking-stick, 2-3 m. high, 
was plentiful under the lofty trees. This rain forest extended up the 
slopes of Mt. Victoria to 3500 feet and yielded the interesting Dryopteris 
Cesatiana, discovered in New Guinea by Beccari and since only found by 
Horne in Fiji The mosses, Diphyscium submarginatum, on stones, and 
Rhodobryum Graejeanun, Philonotis asperifolia, and Thuidium samoanum 
were plentiful, with the Hepatic Pleurozia gigantea in pendent red tufts on 
the trunks of trees. 
Approaching the summit of Mt. Victoria, Dendrobium Mohianum was 
