FLORA OF THE NICOBAR ISLANDS. 1 
the adjacent Pulo Milu. Both these plants grow so close together, 
and with such fresh luxuriance, that they look like some neatly-trimmed 
hedge. The silvery Tournefortia attains a height of twenty feet, and 
is distinguishable even at a distance by its greyish tint; while the 
dense-leaved and pale-green Scevola luxuriates in all the vigour of a 
vernal freshness; but it is often, together with the Ischemum beyond, 
overgrown by large masses of a pale-yellow, leafless, filiform, social 
parasite, the Cassytha filiformis. 
Within or beyond this fence, rarely on the sea-side of it, we have 
a variety of trees, which are either not found at all elsewhere, or appear 
here in greatest number, although they belong not to the social class. 
Among the commonest is the magnificent Barringtonia speciosa, 
Guettarda speciosa, which perfumes the air after the sun has set, 
Calophyllum Inophyllum, Paritium tiliaceum, Thespesia populnea, 
Heritiera litoralis? Hernandia ovigera? and Sterculia Balanghas. 
Of smaller size, but not less striking by their frequency, are species 
of Sophora (tomentosa), Canavalia, Bridelia, Glochidion, Mappa, and 
Ricinus communis. This last, on Catschall, was of the size of a - 
tree twelve to thirteen feet high, with seeds much smaller than what 
is usual when it is herbaceous; and it formed a thick grove, occupying 
several acres, probably the result of cultivation. But it is the Cocoa- 
nut, almost the only plant cultivated with any sort of care by the 
inhabitants, which oceupies the largest space of the coral-land, and at 
once attracts the eye of the new-comer, both by its numbers and form, all 
the other vegetation, however striking, forming as it were only the frame- 
work to this palm. I am not aware of the Cocoa occurring anywhere 
beyond the coral-land, with the exception of the little elevation of - 
about 100 feet of the small rocky island of Montchal, and the upper 
part of the river of Little Nicobar. It is planted without any regu- 
larity, and more closely than in many other parts of India; neither is it 
kept free from weeds or sometimes even a dense coppice, nor are the 
older trees surrounded by a circular ridge for the purpose of irrigation in 
the dry season; and yet I know not that I have seen it anywhere in 
greater luxuriance, | or producing a greater quantity of fruit, than on the — 
Nicobars. : 
There is a fresh-water pool nearly in the middle of Milu, bid on | 
sandstone and clay-slate formations to the westward, but in other 
surrounded by coral-land. Its fine, dark, peat-like soil - 
