DR. O. STAPF ON THE FLORA OF MOUNT KINABALU, 91 
in combination with other agencies. The same reluctance will be necessary in drawing 
conclusions from the minuteness of seeds and fruits apparently adapted to the transport 
by wind. Here, again, very many of the Kinabalu plants having such seeds or fruits are 
endemic, or they live in sheltered, quiet places, where the action of wind must necessarily 
be very limited. 
IV. ENDEMISM. 
To speak of the endemism of a district so little known and forming part of a likewise 
imperfectly explored flora is a very difficult task, and 1 do it only under a certain 
reservation. Better material, and particularly more experience concerning the variability 
of the plants, will no doubt enable us in future to reduce some of the endemic forms to 
already described species of a wider range, and others may be found in other parts of 
Borneo or of the Archipelago. I have, however, reason to believe that the number of 
endemic species from the three upper zones will not be very considerably lessened, 
especially if we take the highland of Kinabalu, not exactly Kinabalu proper, as basis. 
I have, for instance, lately worked up the whole Kew material of Thalamiflorze of North 
Borneo, from the west frontier of Sarawak to the east coast of British North Borneo, 
and besides gone through Dr. Haviland’s more recent and very ample collections from 
Sarawak, without coming across more than one of the species which I had originally 
taken to be endemic on Kinabalu. Thus the fact that the flora of Kinabalu is extremely 
rich in endemic species may be considered as well established. 
The endemic Phanerogams number 199 out of 342, or 58 per cent., but their distribution 
over the four zones is as follows :— 
ZO... L II. II. IV. 
Number and a | 8 (19 per cent.) 89 (57 percent.) 74 (65 percent.) 30 (59 per cent.) 
of endemic species. 
Among the 8 endemic species of the hill zone are three or four species which some 
botanists, holding a wider view with regard to the limitation of species (for instance in 
the sense of Bentham in his * Flora Australiensis ”), would perhaps refer to already known 
species of a wider range. This would reduce the percentage of endemic species within 
the hill zone to not much more than 10 per cent., a comparatively very low figure. 
Above 3000 feet the percentage of endemic species is very high. It is a little higher 
in the ridge-vegeiation than below 6000 feet, but the difference is not very great. In 
the summit zone it seems again to decrease. We must, however, distinguish here 
between the bush and the vegetation of the open land (bogs and rocks), the proportional 
share of endemic species in the bush being 2 in 3, but only lin 2 in the open land 
vegetation. Thus it is manifest that the decrease of endemism in the summit zone 
is solely due to the flora of the open land, which is about as rich in species as the bush, - 
‘and contains more elements of a wide range, particularly amongst sedges and grasses. 
The bush itself, however, exhibits the same extraordinary endemism which distinguishes 
the forest of the main range. 
