THE PHILIPPINE 



Journal of Science 



C. Botany 



Vol. XI MARCH, 1916 No. 2 



NOTES ON THE FLORA OF BORNEO 



By E. D. Merrill 1 



(From the Botanical Section of the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of 



Science, Manila, P. I.) 



The flora of the great Island of Borneo is very imperfectly 

 known, and for this reason it has been quite impossible to work 

 out in detail the phytogeographic relationships between the 

 Philippines and Borneo. From the geographic proximity of 

 the islands, definite phytogeographic relationships are to be 

 expected, yet so far as publications go, and so far as collections 

 already made have been studied, the cases of special distribution 

 of species between the Philippines and Borneo are strikingly 

 weak when compared with those between the Philippines and 

 the islands to the south and southeast of the Archipelago. 



With the object of determining more in detail just what 

 the relationships of the Philippine and Bornean floras are, an 

 attempt has been made, in the past five or six years, to secure 

 Bornean botanical material for purposes of study and comparison 

 with that originating in the Philippines. Through the kindness 

 of Mr. J. C. Moulton, director of the Sarawak Museum, Kuching, 

 Sarawak, a native collector was secured, who worked intermit- 

 tently for the Bureau of Science for several years under Mr. 

 Moulton's direction, the specimens thus collected being trans- 

 mitted to the Bureau of Science from time to time. Additional 

 collections were made in Sarawak by Dr. F. W. Foxworthy in 

 1908 for the Bureau of Science. Important collections were 

 also received in exchange, notably a nearly complete set of 

 Charles Hose's Sarawak collections from the British Museum, 



1 Associate professor of botany, University of the Philippines. 

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