90 DR. O. STAPF ON THE FLORA OF MOUNT KINABALU. 
lower mountain zone is concerned. The case lies, however, differently with the ridge- 
and the summit-vegetation. The relative number of species with very showy flowers is 
here about twice as large as in the greater part of the lower zone, and the effect must be 
the more striking where the number of individuals increases at the same time, and above 
all on account of the stunted growth of the forest, the flower-treasures of which are placed 
immediately before the traveller's eyes. The proportion of the three classes is the same 
in the summit zone as in the ridge flora, but the vegetation is altogether too scanty to 
be impressive, and particularly the herbaceous vegetation of the bogs and rocks is far 
from displaying that gaudy show of colours which we are used to associate in our mind 
with the idea of a truly alpine flora. 
White (or white tinged with yellow or pink) and red are the prevalent colours if we 
exclude the flowers of Class III. More than 90 per cent. of the flowers of the lower 
mountain zone of which the colour was ascertainable are either white or red, and the 
proportion of these two colours is 2: 1 in this zone, whilst yellow and still more blue 
or violet are very rare. The ridge and the summit vegetation has 75-80 per cent. white 
or red flowers, the proportion of both colours being again 2 : 1, whilst the rest is yellow. 
3. Fruits.—Fleshy fruits, mostly berries, are remarkably frequent. They amount to 
35-40 per cent., whilst the percentage of plants with seeds, apparently adapted by their 
smallness for dispersion by wind, is 25-28 per cent., whether we take the vegetation 
above 3000 feet as a whole or zone by zone. A few plants, as Parameria, Hoya, and 
Aischynanthus, possess seeds with long tufts of hairs constituting a sort of flying con- 
trivance, and the pappus of some of the Composite acts in the same way. The latter, 
however, are weeds, confined to the hill zone. Otherwise there is very little that is 
remarkable in the fruits and seeds with regard to contrivances which might be con- 
sidered to be means of dispersion. The large percentage of fleshy fruits and minute seeds 
would seem to point in an eminent degree to the interference of animals and currents of 
air in their distribution. But the fact that a fruit is fleshy and therefore; in our opinion, 
attractive to certain birds is no proof that it is really devoured by them, and still less 
that it is dispersed by them, particularly over a wide area. Observations on the spot, 
examinations of the contents of the crop and the intestines of shot birds, collections of 
fruits and seeds found in them, and experiments to ascertain whether the seeds retain 
their germinating power after having passed the digestive organs of the animals, are the 
only means, worthy of science, for elucidating the part which the presence of a “ fleshy ” 
structure in fruits and seeds plays with regard to distribution. The rest is mere 
conjecture. We possess already a few observations of this kind from the Malay 
Archipelago, but they are too few to generalize from them. The distribution of some 
of the berry-producing plants (as, for instance, Rubus rosefolius, Nertera depressa, or 
: Dianella ensifolia) by birds, either in the present or in some more or less remote time, is 
highly probable from the area over which these species range. Yet the fact that so 
many of the endemic species possess fleshy fruits is extremely unfavourable to the 
. assumption that the general object of this particular structure is to act, in the first place, 
as a means of dispersion, especially over wider areas. It may, of course, occasionally be 
. the case, and with particular effect within a very narrow area, or at a very slow rate and 
