462 Botanical Notices from Java. 



Derris. 

 Derris, Adams in Linn. Trans, ii. 67. 



1. D. sanguinea. 



Derris sanguinea, Adams in Linn.Trans. ii. 67. tab. 13. fig. 1, 2. Turt. 

 Gmel. iv. 108. Turt. Brit. Faun. 132. Penn. Br. Zool. iv. 101. 



XL VI. — Journey through Java, descriptive of its Topography and 

 Natural History. By Dr. Fr. Junghuhn*. 



[Continued from p. 332.] 



Journey to the Merapi. 



We ascended from the Sawungang towards Andong, and at a 

 height of 3000 feet came to a district which was covered with 

 Saccharum Klaga growing to a height of from 15 to 20 feet. The 

 forests then again appeared which had already been passed lower 

 down. Here begins a frightful wilderness ; high vaulted trees, 

 covering the whole country far and wide, rose up from the deepest 

 clefts and pressed against the steepest acclivities : climbers and 

 densely interwoven shrubs filled up all the interstices between the 

 stems. One while we came to a narrow mountain ridge scarcely 

 two feet broad, between steep disrupted masses of rock covered 

 with trees ; then we mounted up these steep acclivities, climbing 

 from the stem of one tree to another ; then, again, we found 

 ourselves in deep, moist, rocky clefts, vaulted over by the foliage 

 of the trees and shrubs so thickly that not a ray of the sun 

 could penetrate to us. The clouds had settled low on the moun- 

 tains, and enveloped us in their damp and cold mists, which brought 

 with them a peculiar odour. These deep forests are formed of 

 hundreds of species of trees, which belong to the most various fami- 

 lies. Preeminent are the species of Ficus, easily distinguished by 

 their white, tenacious, milky sap, which flows from the injured 

 bark ; and next to these, the Magnoliaceae and Urticea. In the 

 thicket which fills up the spaces between their gigantic stems, the 

 beautiful flowers of species of Medinella and other Melastomacece 

 shine forth ; and Scitaminece (Amomum, Zingiber, &c.) raise their 

 luxuriant leaves to a height of 20 feet, whilst their variegated cones 

 of blossoms only half appear above the moist ground. Urtica ? di- 

 chotomUy Bl. * Bydragen,' a small tree with beautiful leaves which 

 on their under surface have white and parallel veins, adorns these 

 thicketsf. A little higher up occurs a beautiful social Lycopodium, 

 which attains a height of scarcely three feet, and covers the moist 

 parts of the woods, like our mosses, as a kind of coherent cushion. 



* From the Botanische Zeitung, Sept. 5th and 12th, 1845. 



f Arbor est elegans, trunco gracili, 30 — 40 pedes alto, cinereo, ramisque 

 gracilibus ; foliis in ambitu ramulorum collectis. — Silvulas constituit visu 

 singulares, declivia montis Merapi ex altitudine 4000 pedum ad 6000 te- 

 gentes. — Trunci, quo magis in altum montis adscendunt, eo humiliores eva- 

 dunt, denique vix 20 pedes alti, Usneis tecti, e ramis longe dependentibus. 



