474 Botanical Notices from Java. 



high, and alternate with numerous species of ferns, from two to ten 

 feet high. Amongst the last, Aspidium neriiforme, Sw., is espe- 

 cially striking, with beautiful lanceolate foliage, which is elongated 

 in a very peculiar manner, and winds about the trees almost like 

 a cord. Here and there from the tops of the trees hangs down a 

 string of Cissus 100 feet long, which is imbedded in young Junger- 

 manni(£ SiTid mosses, and the enormous circumference of which (some- 

 times as thick as a man's thigh) excites astonishment. 



This was the character of the forest vegetation which surrounded 

 us, as we ascended on the N.N.W. acclivity of the Panggerango. 

 From the great cleft which lay on our right proceeded the hollow 

 rushing noise of the rivulet, and from the tops of the trees came 

 the lovely song of a bird, whose well-known notes we listened to 

 with delight, for it was the mountain- songster of Java, the Muscicapa 

 cantatrix, which here welcomed us in its native habitat. 



As we ascended, some of the little plants with which we had be- 

 come acquainted since our entrance from the coffee-plantations into 

 the woods disappeared ; Scutellaria indica, which does not grow at 

 a height exceeding 5000 feet, disappeared the first ; Ardisia coc- 

 einea. Begonia repanda and robusta also soon vanished, and these 

 were gradually followed by the species of Calamus, Areca glanduli- 

 formis and Aspidium neriiforme. But in their places we observed 

 Polypodium Dipteris (which we had before met with at Tapos, and 

 previously on the lake of Telaga-Bodas), but above all Freycinetia 

 (Fr. insignis, Bl. and others), which, reaching their maximum 

 at a height of between 5000 and 6000 feet, principally determine 

 the physiognomy of the interior of the woods in this region ; for 

 on almost all the trees they climb in spiral windings, concealing 

 the stems as it were under the weight of their fasciculate leaves, 

 which resemble the leafy crowns of the Pandance or Ananassce. Not 

 less characteristic of the interior of the woods of this region is an 

 arborescent Araliaceous plant, namely Hedera aromatica, DC, whose 

 wide-spreading branches, extending thirty feet in length, which 

 unite below in a very short stem, and are crowned with leaves and 

 panicles of flowers only at their extremities, attract the wanderer's 

 eye. Isolated, occurs a very peculiar species of Pandanus* , whose 

 dark green tufts of leaves rise directly at the ends of a slender 

 stem thirty feet high and quite perpendicular, as if trying to imitate 

 a palm-tree, or emulating the tree-ferns {Cyathea polycarpa and 

 oligocarpa, Jgh.) which rise not less slender and palm-like in its 

 vicinity. At times the circular Asplenium Nidus-avis is seen adhering 

 to such a Pandanus stem, which perforates it in the centre, so that 

 twofold and threefold crowns rise one above another on the stem, the 

 uppermost of which however are easily recognised as the leaves of 

 the Pandanus, and the lower ones by their light pisang-green as the 

 whorl of leaves of the Asplenium. 



Beneath the loftier trees (Fagraa, Acacia ISaltuum, &c. have dis- 

 appeared) which compose the forest in this region, that is to say, 



* It was barren, and could not therefore bo more closely determined. 



