78 MB. H. K. MOSELEY Otf PLANTS COLLECTED 



beneath the tree, is a familiar object at both places, and which 

 was further found on the sea-surface off the north coast of New 

 Guinea amongst the drift-wood from the Ambernoh river. "Whilst 

 the ground beneath is bare and muddy and beset with the bare 

 roots of the trees, the trunks of the trees and fallen logs in these 

 dark swampy woods are covered with the most luxuriant growth 

 of feathery mosses and Jungermannias. On one of these tree- 

 trunks I found also a very curious fern, Trichomanes peltatum. 

 The fronds of the fern are orbicular in form, and adhere in rows 

 (as connected by the slender rhizome) to the bark. They are 

 pressed absolutely flat against the bark, so as to look like an ad- 

 hering crust, and have all the appearance of a Miccia, or some 

 such form, for which, indeed, I took them when I gathered the 

 specimens by cutting off flakes of the bark. At a few hundred 

 yards inland are tracts covered with young sago-palms with 

 several species of Zinziberacece and large swamp-ferns grow- 

 ing beneath them, and a Sphagnum in small quantities. On a 

 collecting-expedition to this part of the island I crossed the 

 swamp, here about half a mile in width, and came to a steep rise 

 in the land of about 30 feet or so. Here the rock appeared to be 

 volcanic, and the soil, draining itself into the swamp below, was 

 firm and comparatively dry. The vegetation here changed its 

 aspect considerably ; and a tree fern, about 6 feet in height, oc- 

 curred at the verge of the rise, and a Melastoma. The rising 

 ground itself was covered with a dense growth of trees, with but 

 little underwood. Beneath these trees grew in abundance iso- 

 lated tufts of Trichomanes javanicum, the erect fern-like Selagi- 

 nella inaqualifolia (so abundant in the Fijis, the Aru islands, and 

 the Moluccas), and a small zingiberaceous herb. I found many 

 trees here which I had not met with in the swampy ground. 

 The trees were covered with climbing Aroids, of only one spe- 

 cies of which I was able to obtain fertile specimens. Asple- 

 nium nidus and several epiphytic ferns of somewhat similar habit 

 were abundant ; but I missed the large Platycerium so abundant 

 at the Aru islands. The Trichomanes javanicum and all the low 

 vegetation here was bound together by a horsehair-like Bhizo- 

 morpha, which was in such abundance as to be a hindrance in the 

 securing of good specimens of the plants. 



Of palms I saw, on the whole, in the Admiralty Islands five spe- 

 cies — the cocoa-nut, sago, and Areca palms, a Caryota, and a small 

 fan-palm. I procured specimens of leaves only of the two 



