96 DR. O. STAPF ON THE FLORA OF MOUNT KINABALU. 
of a given flora may be, I think it is the only one which is truly rational, and it never 
can be replaced by the mechanical summing-up of the indications made in the tabu- 
lations. 
a. General Indo-Malayan Elements (elements distributed throughout Indo-Malaya).— 
I refer 39 species, or 16 per cent., of the Indo-Malayan portion of the flora to this class. 
One-third are endemic, two-thirds more or less widely distributed; but there are a few 
species among the endemic ones which approach so very closely to well-known species 
that some botanists would probably consider them rather as varieties than as species 
(Pavetta limbata, Ardisia oocarpa, Daphniphyllum borneense). They are pretty equally 
distributed from 3000 to 11,000 feet, but comparatively numerous in the summit zone, 
where they amount to 30 per cent. of the Indo-Malayan portion and are mostly endemic. 
This circumstance, and the fact of their belonging almost exclusively to genera which are 
apparently very ancient (Hurya, Ilex, Myrsine, Daphniphyllum), suggest that they are 
rather remnants of an old flora than that they owe their presence to some particular 
capability of spreading, as this is the case with most of the widely-distributed species of 
the hill zone. 
b. Elements peculiar to the insular portion of Indo-Malaya (including the Malay 
Peninsula).—I find only 9 species which are either known from the insular portion 
of Indo-Malaya only, west and east of Kinabalu, or, if endemic, have representative 
congeners within this limit only, and they would coincide almost entirely with the 
general Indo-Malayan elements if we took the affinities in a somewhat wider sense. 
There are, in fact, only two genera (Pentaphragma and Dichotrichium) which are 
absolutely limited to the Indo-Malayan Archipelago. 
c. Malayan Elements.—These amount to 129 species or 50 per cent. of the Indo- 
Malayan portion of the flora and to almost 40 per cent. of the total vegetation, thus 
forming the principal feature in the composition of the flora of the forest. They are 
most numerous between 3000 and 5000 feet (60 per cent.), and least numerous in 
the summit zone (45 per cent.). Not quite two-thirds of them are endemic species, 
many, however, closely allied to species from Java, Sumatra, or the Malay Peninsula. 
The increase of endemism with increasing altitude is manifest also here, but it 
decreases again in the summit zone. The percentage is 50 from 3000 to below 5000 feet, 
68 from 5000 to 6000 feet (inclusive), 75 from above 6000 to below 11,000 feet, 66 
from 11,000 feet. | 
d. Bornean Elements.—The species which are limited to Borneo, or, if endemic, have 
no close congeners outside Borneo, number about 34. All but 6 were collected at or 
above 5000 feet, and all of them are endemie on Kinabalu except four. "They belong 
chiefly to Melastomacee, an order in which the flora of Borneo is particularly rich, and 
to the genera Vaccinium, Rhododendron and Nepenthes. Sir Ferdinand von Mueller 
considers, however, some of the species of Rhododendron and Vaccinium described by him 
from the Owen Stanley Range as very near to species which I refer to this class. 
e. Elements common to Kinabalu and the Philippines only.—1 refer to this class 
11 endemic and 1 non-endemie species: 10 of them are found between 5000 and 
11,000 feet, and 1 below and 1 above this zone. The majority of them point most 
