204 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



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Fig. 8. A portion of the Garden, with formal beds and wide expanse of 

 lawn arranged to please European tourists. From a photograph by Macmillan kindly 

 furnished by the director. 



stouter than those of lower altitudes and not so tall. In these moun- 

 tain highlands in addition to forest there is a certain amount of " open 

 country," the patanas. These are expanses of grassland on hillsides 

 and rolling ground. The monsoon forest occurs in the drier regions 

 of the island in the northwest and southeast. Here there are no very 

 tall trees as compared with those of the rain forest and many of them 

 are short and scrubby — very much branched after the manner of dry- 

 country plants the world over. A considerable number are deciduous, 

 losing their leaves in the hotter and drier months of spring to put them 

 on again in the period of the monsoon or rain-bearing winds. 



In the hot, moist lowlands of the southwest part of the island a 

 typical strand flora may be seen. There are mangrove swamps and 

 thickets of Mpa palm. It is in such very hot districts that rubber is 

 grown and the cocoanut flourishes also. The drier regions have usually 

 what would be a fair allowance of rain if in the temperate zone, but 

 the tropical heat causes such rapid evaporation that the fifty inches of 

 annual rainfall at Anuradhapura is not sufficient to grow crops without 

 irrigation. Here then is a truly arid district. Farther north at Jaffna 

 it is still drier, so that almost desert conditions prevail at least for a part 

 of the year. As these dry regions can be visited easily at all times of 

 year they make a very attractive feature of the island from the stand- 

 point of the botanist. They are especially interesting to the American 

 student familiar with the arid conditions of the west. In America all 



