9 
same parallels, than those of any other. This, indeed, is to be 
expected, from the fact that the ocean forms a ready medium for 
their transmission from one country to another, by means of tides, 
winds, and currents, while at the same time their seeds, unlike 
those of most other plants, are not injured by immersion in salt 
water. Most of the shrubs which inhabit the muddy shores of 
the sea, and of the salt lagoons which are so numerous towards 
the north of the Island, and which are known by the name of 
Mangroves, belong to that natural order of plants which botanists 
call Rhizophoree, a strictly intertropical tribe. My researches 
have already yielded about half-a-dozen species, all of which 
I find are common to Ceylon, the shores of the continent of 
India, and of those of the Eastern Islands; and the same 
is the case with a few other shrubs belonging to other tribes, 
such as yiceras fragrans, which extends even to the shores 
of Australia, Lpithinia Malayana, Pemphis acidula, Dilivaria 
wlicifolia, Lumnitzera racemosa, Thespesia populnea (the Tulip- 
tree of Ceylon), and Paritium tiliaceum, the last having a 
far more extensive geographical range than any of the others, 
for I possess specimens in my Herbarium from the shores of 
the West Indies, Brazil, and the Sandwich Islands, besides 
_ from various parts of India. The Cocoa-nut tree, which 
gives so marked a feature to the west coast of Ceylon, and is 
now so generally cultivated along the shores of all intertropical 
countries, is essentially a sea-side plant, and has as good claims 
to be considered indigenous to Ceylon as to any other part of 
the world. The same observations that apply to the shrubs of 
our shores, apply also to the herbaceous vegetation. 
The great flat tract extending between the sea-shore and the 
central mountain range, is possessed of a very extensive Flora ; 
but as its general character is stamped by a few species which 
are very numerous in individuals, it is to them chiefly that 
my remarks apply. In this tract a very great proportion of 
the species are identical with those of similar ones on the coasts 
of Coromandel and Malabar. ‘The generally acid nature of its 
soil, together with its much drier climate than that of the in- 
terior, is well shown, especially in the Northern Province, by the 
more wiry and stunted nature of the trees and bushes, their 
prickly stems and branches, and the smaller size of their leaves, 
together with a much greater proportion of fleshy shrubs, such 
as Huphorbias, &c. The species which preponderate in indi- 
viduals in the Northern Province, are different kinds of Acacia, 
mostly very thorny, the Wood Apple (Feronia Hlephantum), Li- 
monia alata, Salvadora Persica (the true Mustard-tree of Scrip- 
