298 Seifriz: Plants on Mt. Gedeh, Java 



thrive, but rather their moisture requirements. The tree fern, 

 for good development, requires abundant light as well as ample 

 moisture and a cool temperature. Specimens found in the dark 

 interior of the mountain rain-forests are invariably poor, and 

 never have I seen a good stand of tree ferns but that the crowns 

 were above all the surrounding vegetation, exposed to direct 

 sunlight. 



In the gulch at Kandang Badak, where the above mentioned 

 climatic conditions prevail, there is an excellent growth of tree 

 ferns. Alsophila glanca var. densa and Cyathea orientalis are 

 the two characteristic tall species. The genus Dicksonia, 

 which does not exceed a height of 10 feet as compared with a 

 maximum of 50 feet for the other two genera, is represented by a 

 single species, D. Blumei. When well developed the crown of 

 the tree fern represents the most beautiful and delicate of all 

 tropical foliage (Fig. 6). 



Gleichenia, like the tree fern, requires ample light for its best 

 development, but is an exception among ferns in that it thrives 

 well in very dry soil. This fern is usually found in exposed sunny 

 localities. Thus, it is very abundant in the open formation of 

 the third subzone, where two species are common, a small, wiry 

 one, G. linearis, and a large, coarse species, G. volubilis, which 

 often sends out prostrate leafless shoots as much as 20 feet in 

 length. Both form impenetrable thickets. 



Mosses are much less abundant here in the third subzone 

 than they were in the second. Their absence is due probably 

 to the open, sunny, and therefore less moist nature of this 

 region. Lichens, on the other hand, are more numerous. The 

 cosmopolitan Usnea occurs in great abundance. This lichen is 

 typically, the world over, a genus of high altitudes or latitudes. 



The evidence that Mt. Gedeh is not a dead volcano is to be 

 had along the trail in the third subzone, where two springs of 

 steaming hot water gush forth and give rise to the brook 

 "Tjipanas."* In the extremely hot water (about 130 F.)f 

 of these springs there grows in great luxuriance a species of the 



*"Tji" is a Malay prefix signifying "river". "Panas" the newcomer 

 soon adds to his vocabulary; it means "hot". 



t One often reads of higher temperatures of springs in which plants 

 are growing, but the maximum temperature from a reliable source is not over 

 65 C. (150° F.). 



