286 



Seifriz: Plants on Mt. Gedeh, Java 



The rivals of the rasamala in size are the oaks and chestnuts. 

 The oaks, of which there are several species (e.g.,Quercus spicata 

 and Q. Pseudo-molucca) , are in some respects strikingly different 

 from our American oaks. The trunks rise like great columns 



before they branch to form 

 the crown, and the fruits 

 are of a colossal size com- 

 pared to an American 

 acorn. Botanists do not 

 always appreciate how 

 characteristic a tree of the 

 tropics the oak is. We be- 

 come accustomed to re- 

 garding Quercus as a tem- 

 perate genus. The chest- 

 nuts are likewise of great 

 size. The two character- 

 istic species are Castanea 

 Tungurrut and C. argentea. 

 Conspicuous among the 

 big trees of the first subzone 

 on M t. Gedeh are the figs, 

 whose composite trunks as- 

 sume tremendous size. 

 There are nine species of fig 

 on Gedeh (more than sixty 

 in all Java), the largest 

 of which is Ficus involu- 

 crata. In connection with 

 the epiphytic habit of fig 

 tree seedlings it is of in- 

 terest to note that Chodat,* 

 as a result of his recent 

 investigations in South 

 America, has discovered 

 that "the young Ficus from its first implantation behaves as a 

 saprophyte." 



The medium sized and smaller trees of the first subzone are 



Fig. 3. The trunk-base of the rasa- 

 mala. The large liane (on the left), marked 

 with successive rings, is a Piper, possibly 

 P. baccatum. The smaller liane, extending 

 up the trunk, is Ficus disticha. The large 

 leaves of a banana, Musa acuminata, can be 

 seen in the lower right corner. 



Chodat, Robert: La Vegetation du Paraguay, Geneva, 1920. 



