21 



light. Its seeds very heavily^ and the ground is liter- 

 ally carpeted with baby trees. The fruit itself is a con- 

 spicuous object, 4 inches long and 1 i inches diameter, 

 a stout sausage with somewhat sharpened ends. When 



husbands. The stuff, when made up, 

 usually goes by the name of Tapi 

 cloth among white people. 



Immediately behind the coast line is a dense scrub of 



it has thrown down its root, and made its first leaves, regrowrh or farm woo d-lands. Figs are rather more 



the seedling looks very grotesque with this large sausage 

 of a seed standing cut stiffly at right angles. Unfor- 



common here, and No. 208 — Wraiso (Hibiscus tilll- 

 aceous)- — is everywhere abundant. Its striking yellow 



tunatelv, I found no tree in flower, so Mr. White can _i/ in i • i , " • i i a/ r u 



i '*., v™ . , , ,, ' • r -i purple-eved flowers, which turn rose pink when they tall 



only ascribe it tentatively to the apocynacious family 

 its generic and specific determination must await better 

 material. 



The data in Tables XVI. and XVI T. do not give an 

 idea of the maximum stands of this timber. The forest 

 in reality might be divided into two; the first part was 

 a borua and okamu forest, with some 12 acres of strip 



survey, and here grew 87 of the 96 borua trees enumer- 

 ated in the tables. In other words, 12 acres carried 

 18,038 cubic feet, or 1,504 cubic feet per acre of one 

 kind of timber — over seven trees to the acre cubing 

 207 cubic feet each. Of the remainder of the forest 

 eight acres carried little or no timber, being low lying 



and swampy, and 20 acres carried fair average mixed 

 rain forest for Papua. In the latter type wore 



seme very fine specimens of No. 151, lala. This tree, 

 with its yellow-red, papery bark, is very conspicuous. 

 Unfortunately it is so easily confounded with No. 220, 



lalagi (Wormia querdfolia) , that I am unable 

 to toll them apart by general appearance. I 



have either to cut into the wood, when, if it 

 is lajagi, the wide medodullary rays show up on the 



to the ground, are a splash of colour on the tracks in 

 July and August around Buna. The bark is sought 

 after for tying up loads, and makes excellent cordage. 

 The forest growth along the beach is quite distinctive, 



and deserves a separate description. 



Beach Forests of Buna District. 



Wherever there is a creek or river mouth opening 

 into the sea, the mangrove swamps occur with their 

 characteristic tree formation, which I will describe 

 later. Elsewhere the land is higher, and we find a more 

 or less dense forest of low height growth. This is the 

 beach forest. It contains a number of the rain forest 

 species I have already described, but it also contains a 

 number of purely sea-coast types, of which three are, 



No/ 



perhaps, most common. 

 inophyttum) — a 



209 



large 



tree with a 



Otai-i (C a / o phyttum 

 curious habit of 



growth. Rooted above high water mark, it leans right 



cut towards the sea. Sometimes the angle of lean La 



such that the tree makes less than 45° with the ground. 

 Probably this curiously leaning habit has for its object 

 the dissemination of the fruit, a spherical light nut 



quarter, or examine the fallen leaf and see if it has which jg sea -borne. The wood is beautiful, and would 



lalagi's scarred petiole whence the ligule has fallen. be very useful if only the bole were straighter ; as it is, 



The leaves of lala are opposite, and those of lalagi t h e only use to which it is put is boat knees. Its leaves 



alternate, which is the best check of all if you can get are very leathery, and altogether it has the appearance 



down a branch. Finally, the flowers of lalagi are a 



conspicuous thing on the ground, while lala seems a 



rare flowering species, and is unrelated to the 

 Dilleniacese, for lalagi is a Wormia. 



of a species armed against most of the disabilities in- 

 herent to its habitat; sand saturated daily with sea 

 water. 



No. 217. Sonneratia alba. — This is the largese tree 



Of species first found in the Northern Division there on the sandy beaches. It attains a girth of 13 feet 

 are only two, viz., No. 203 — kaira — (Maniltoa sp. nov.), 

 a large leguminous tree, the wood of which was much 

 sought after by the war-like Binandele folk to make 

 handles for their murderous stone clubs of pineapple 



section. To-day it is used more often for axe handles 



and combs, and for the latter purpose is regarded as 

 superior to No. 10 — melila (Afzelia bijuf/a). 



No. 204 — Gue-Gne (Paijena sp.). — This is one of tie 

 most handsome trees I have seen in Papua. It attains a 

 height overall of over 150 feet. It has a very shapely 

 crown which often covers a circle of 100 feet diameter; 

 I have measured a bole of 135 feet, with girth of 8 1 

 feet just above the spur roots, which ascend to about 



and a height of 90 feet, with a clear bole of 60 feet. 

 While it is unbuttressed and without spur roots, it has 

 a regular young thicket of those queer breathing roots, 

 whose somewhat sesquepedalian name is pneumatophores. 

 It has a showy red filamented flower, and yields a hard 

 close-grained timber. Tike Otai-i, it has very leathery 

 leaves. It is a tree of salt water country, and will grow 

 in very swampy land, thanks to its breathing roots. 



Casuar'ma equisetifoUa. — A medium to large tree 

 with a wellfiejured timber. It grows all round the 



It grows 

 coast at just above high-water mark. "Wherever a bar 



silts up, and a spit of sand comes above the level of high 

 spring tides, there a line of young casuarinas establishes 

 itself. Thev are so regular! v lined out, and so even 



6 feet, and spread out from the trunk 7 feet; yet they aged that one is r€minded of a plantation. It is a good 

 cannot be called buttresses. 



Leaving Sagari I pursued an easterly track that lead 

 me through Vivisioni to Gona, a village on the coast in 

 Hclmcote Bay. All along the route were little patches 

 of forest, but they were so intersected with farm lands 

 as to be of little interest from a forestry standpoint. 

 A large extent of low-lying land, subject to inunda- 

 tions, occurs around the lower Amboga, and this carries 

 little timber. 



sand-fixing species, and is ornamental, so adds to the 

 b'auty of the coastal scenery. In the days before 

 petrol launches, the wood of this species was much in 

 demand for boiler fuel. 



As one goes inland from the sand beach a few yards, 

 one meets with more rain forest species, 

 melila, No. 4 — nara are common. The forest Plaa- 



choma timorensis, Xo. 2, gives place to the allied 



coastal species, Barringtonia speciosa. Another legu- 

 minous tree like Xo. 10 — melila — is common; this is 

 No. 216 — jambo (Fongamia glabra)* It yields a ha 



No. 10 



-d 



Three fresh species were met with, viz. : — 



No. 205. — Gasara, which yields a hard wood. 



No. 206. — Inene (Myristica pseurfo-a rgen&ea), a wood, but the sap and heart are the same colour, a 



nutmeg tree, the nut of which, light yellow. X !V> . 2 1 S — laure ( Carapa moluccensis syn. 



I am afraid, is net likely to be com- Xylocarpus granatum) — -is a tree often met with, and 



mercially valuable 

 No. 207. — The much prized paper mulberry, 



Broussonetm papyri. This is the tree 



cultivated in all farm lands for its 



bark, which, when beaten out, makes 



i 



easily recognized by its large round brown fruits. It is 

 really a mangrove species, but grows also above the 



tidal level. No. 214 — kuyuvu (T/nspesia populnea) 



is a tree which is rarely found outside the beach forests. 

 No. 215 — bindioi-a — is a medium 



tree in the same 



skirts of the northern women, and local ii v. 



}*erennial bands and aprons of their home in the beach forest. 



bindjopa — is 



No. 234 — kerea (jlenuuuHa peltata) is 



at 



