a 
—— 
XII, C,4 Brown, Merrill and Yates: Volcano Island 179 
little or no damage to the vegetation on the island. In 1874 
there was an eruption during which the entire island was covered 
with “ashes.” 
Plate IV is a relief map of Volcano Island previous to the erup- 
tion in 1911. The chief change in the physiography wrought by 
this eruption was within the crater, the center of which is now 
occupied by a single lake. 
FORMER VEGETATION 
The only publication that we have been able to find, relating 
to the vegetation of Volcano Island previous to the eruption of 
1911, is a list of 236 species given by Centeno,*’ which he says 
were collected between the years 1877 and 1879 and were named 
by Fernandez-Villar. Centeno gives no account of the vegeta- 
tion, but says that many other plants, mostly grasses and sedges, 
were growing on the island. The species enumerated are com- 
mon and widely distributed in cultivated areas, waste places, or 
second growth forests and are characteristic of cultivated regions 
at low altitudes in the Philippines. A consideration of the 
present flora of Volcano Island and that of the neighboring main- 
land indicates that Centeno’s list must have been very incomplete. 
The first botanist to visit Taal Voleano was Adalbert von Cha- 
misso, of the Romanzoff Expedition (1815-1818), who appears 
to have left no account of the vegetation of Volcano Island as 
it then appeared. 
No description of the vegetation that existed on the island 
previous to the last eruption is on record, but a number of Phil- 
ippine botanists, including Doctors Copeland, Shaw, and Fox- 
worthy and Mr. Merrill, visited the island before the eruption. 
Their descriptions agree and enable us to form a fair idea of 
the general type of vegetation. 
The main part of the island was covered with a mixture of 
small trees and grass, the latter being largely Saccharum spon- 
taneum. The most prominent tree was a form of Ficus indica 
with small leaves, which was abundant in ravines on the lower 
slopes of the volcano. On the volcano itself there were scattered 
tufts of grass, while the rim was bare. The above description 
of the island agrees very well with photographs that were taken 
in 1908-1909 and are on file in the Bureau of Science. 
The island was subject to very rapid erosion. Radiating 
* Centeno, J., Estudio Geolégico del Volean de Taal. Madrid (1885) 1-53, 
pl. 1-4. | 
