DR. O, STAPF ON THE FLORA OF MOUNT KINABALU. 115 
and under conditions which prove that the volcanoes broke through a completed, or nearly 
completed, chain of folded mountains. This old highland may probably have contained a 
great number of such types, which would have been taken over by the voleanoes as they 
were thrown up and the highland broke down. That a Boreal element existed in Malaya 
before the appearance of these volcanoes is clearly demonstrated also by the presence of 
so many Boreal types in Australia. There is no doubt that most, if not all of them, reached 
Australia by way of Malaya and Austro-Malaya, and they can have reached Australia, 
in my opinion, only by way of a land-connection, for—quite apart from other reasons— 
the majority of these types have no particular * means of dispersion.” If so, these 
types must have existed in Malaya before the eastern portion of the Indo-Malayan region 
was separated from the western. We do not know exactly when this separation took 
place or was completed, but it seems to have existed at least since the earlier part of the 
Tertiary period, or long before the voleanos of Sumatra and Java were built up. This 
separation fixes also, on the other hand, the time of the invasion of the Austral-Antarctic 
element. It must have reached Borneo previous to the separation, although it may 
have spread later northward and westward The next temperate (or subtropical) 
element consists of the Circumpacific types. Their general distribution suggests that 
they are very old types. In which part of Eastern Asia they originated I do not venture 
to speculate. In any case, they, or at least some of them, must have been already in 
Malaya before it was separated from Austro-Malaya, as their extension into Austro- 
Malaya proves. Beccari (‘ Malesia,’ i. p. 224) points also to the fact that the line over 
which the Austral-Antarctic types are distributed in Indo-Malaya lies over New Guinea, 
the Moluccas, Borneo and Sumatra, while Java has scarcely any. I find that Java is 
just as rich in these types, or rather just as poor, as Sumatra; but North Borneo is 
certainly very much richer than both of them. It might be suggested that the climatic 
conditions of North Borneo are more like those of the Austral-Antarctic regions. 
This, however, could hardly apply to the “mist zone” of the Sumatran and Javan 
mountains, though it might to the summit zone, which seems to be much drier in Java 
than it is on Kinabalu. Yet, if we remember that the Philippines also possess a very 
remarkable set of Austral-Antarctic types (see Rolfe, in Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxi. 
p. 296), it seems much more plausible to assume that the main line along which this 
Austral-Antarctic element moved lay rather over Halmaheira and North Celebes than 
over or south of the Banda Sea. : 
Every faet that applies to these three components of the temperate highland flora 
i i i i d last component, the Coniferze, and to the 
applies with still greater force to its fourth an | po 
greater part, if not to the whole, of the intra-tropical flora. Both elements must have 
ranged over both portions of Indo-Malaya, east and west of the Moluccas, before the 
UGERNE of Malaya and Austro-Malaya began, and they did so probably a very long 
time before. ; : 
An interesting question arises with regard to those Austral-Antarctic types which I 
have designated as a branch of Boreal types of higher order, and I might perhaps add 
to them the varieties of Agrostis and Deschampsia, and probably also Deyeuzia, A 
remarkable fact is that they are closely connected with southern forms, but slightly with 
