Botanical Notices from Java. 475 



form its uppermost leafy vault, species of Podocarpus predominate, 

 especially Podocarpus imbricata, BL, which has a pyramidal growth 

 only while it is young, but in its old age recalls the picture of the 

 Rasamala-forests in this region by its gigantic height and its im- 

 mense and straight stem. But here the boughs were already hung 

 with species of Usnea» through which the cloudy mists pass. 



We halted close to such a Podocarpus ; for, besides the charac- 

 teristic forms previously noticed, Freycinetia, species of Calamus, and 

 Areca glandiformis had wholly disappeared, and Asplenium Nidus-avis 

 became more rare, although the aspect of the forest (from the lower 

 limits upwards) had not strikingly altered, excepting a greater covering 

 of moss upon the stems and their diminution in the diameter of the 

 stems. Balsamina and Solanmn Rhinocerotis alone still accompanied 

 us. To determine this region, we took an observation, according 

 to which the elevation attained was 6510 feet. Therefore in a ver- 

 tical space of about 2000 feet, from the termination of the cofFee- 

 plantations upwards, we had passed by those different vegetable 

 forms. It was now ten o'clock and gray mists enveloped us. 



We had screwed our perforators for suspending the instruments 

 to the stem of a fern which was met with somewhat lower down, 

 and was distinguished from afar as distinct from Chnoophora glauca. 

 Its growth is less vigorous, less in circumference than that of Chno- 

 ophora glauca ; its fans are much smaller and shorter, fewer in num- 

 ber, and of a less fresh green than in that species ; its stem is more 

 slender ; but its height is the more imposing, being on an average 

 twenty-five feet, in some which I measured thirty-five, and in one 

 even forty feet, rising perpendicularly just like species of palms. The 

 perfectly horizontal direction of the fans, which are united to the 

 ends of the stem only in (single) rows and very few in number, gene- 

 rally only five, six or seven, and, like the spokes of a wheel, lie almost 

 entirely in a plane, so that the form of the whole is shield-like, 

 is very remarkable. This tree-fern is distinguished therefore at the 

 first glance by its different habitus from Chnoophora glauca, whose 

 fans are inserted at different heights one above another in several 

 series from the apex of the stem, and do not grow upwards till they 

 form an angle of 45°, before they bend over in a curve. The fans of 

 the Chnoophora lanuginosa (for so we call our tree-fern) only rise up- 

 wards as long as they are young and undeveloped. This Chnoophora 

 is also worthy of notice for the region to which it belongs, for we 

 have never seen it lower than 5500 feet, whilst it rises to the highest 

 summits, 9200 feet ; and even then its stems, thickly clothed with 

 layers of moss, scarcely decrease from fifteen to twenty feet in height. 



After finishing our barometrical observations, and filling our 

 bamboo-canes in a little brook which runs down just below our 

 halting- place in a trachytic channel, we set out again. 



The woods now assumed another aspect, and their acclivities be- 

 came more and more steep. All other species of trees disappeared, 

 and soon the forest consisted almost solely of some species of the 

 families of Lauririece and Araliacece, but especially species of Thi- 

 baudia. The stems of the trees became shorter, slenderer, rose less 



2 K2 



