24 
The korano of Koebré was quite a superior man, a blood-brother of 
Manao’s, who brought him up to me, when he presented me with splendid 
potatoes and corn-cobs, and I gave him knives and a “kain”’? in return. 
It was interesting to note how the character of the surrounding forest, 
even in such a small area as this lake-basin, varied with the exposure. The 
eastern slopes were characterized by mossy forest, while to the south-east 
Araucaria Beccarii predominate, gregarious and in groups, to near the 
water’s edge (PI. 1. fig. 1). To the north and north-east the forest was not so 
homogeneous, older Libocedrus arfakensis and Podocarpus papuanus, with the 
graceful palm Kentia Gibbsiana, standing out above the mass level, both on 
the slopes and the ridge. On the western slopes of Koebré it was much drier 
in type. 
The most fertile part was the isolated patch of intermediate mossy forest 
behind our camp, which reminded me of Fiji in its beautiful moss-flora and 
wealth of creeping orchids. The possibilities of this patch, though continually 
worked through, seemed inexhaustible. 
Accompanied by two of the “ Pradjoerit,” Manao and his friend the 
Alfuero korano, with the latter’s two delightful boys, most keen to help in 
collecting and looking for plants, I spent a day on Koebré. We crossed the 
lake on two of the rafts tied tovether, following Dr. Gjellerup’s advice. It 
was a very tedious journey, taking about an hour and a half ; while coming 
back in the dark, with stormy gusts of wind and rain, we spent about two 
hours in crossing. The two rafts, attached by a rotan-tie at each end, worked 
against each other as the waves splashed up between. 
The summit of Koebré is a bare, open, lichen-covered plateau, of which 
the wind-swept character is revealed in the shrubs, either prostrate and. 
spreading on the ground or of clipped, erect, and compact habit. A few 
single trees which have survived the fires to which the open character of 
this summit is due, dot the surface, while in gullies and depressions small 
trees are crowded into shrubberies surrounded by a ring of burnt wood. 
It was amazing to see solitary grotesque Myrmedomas, over a metre high, 
also recorded by van Oosterzee (17, 1008)—plants of such size, to say nothing 
of the terrestrial habit, being quite unknown to me (Pl. 3. fig. 6). The 
same may be said of an extraordinary EHydnophytum, just like a collection of 
pipes standing upright on the ground, each pipe representing a hollow stem, 
about one dm. across, bearing flowering branches round the rim. A couple 
of small isolated trees of Dacrydium novo-guineense bore an abundance of 
small red cones. | 
From the summit there is a splendid view over the smaller, or “ Man” 
(d), lake, beautiful in outline, with much cultivation round its shores, of 
which the upper slopes are much more densely wooded and the lower more 
thickly inhabited than the “ Woman ” (?), especially towards the south, 
* Cloth. 
