THE PALAEOTROPICS 



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stately palms with enormous bi-pinnate leaves unlike those of 

 any other palms. Fan-palms are much less abundant, the com- 

 monest belonging to the genera Livistona and Licuala. 



In the wet jungles of the coastal plain the climbing rattan-palms 

 are extremely abundant, and comprise a large number of species 

 belonging to several genera, of which much the most important is 



Fig. 58. — Rattans, botanical gardens, Buitenzorg, Java. 



Calamus. They form impenetrable thorny thickets and some of 

 them reach an incredible length, looping from tree to tree for 

 hundreds of feet, and probably exceeding in length any other 

 member of the vegetable kingdom. The rattan of commerce is 

 the stem stripped of its outer tissues, and this, with the bamboos, 

 which also reach their maximum development in the Malayan 

 regions, furnish the staple building materials for the Malayan 

 dwellings, as well as for endless other uses. 



Ferns are abundant in the lowland forest, among them some 

 small tree-ferns; but, as elsewhere in the tropics, ferns arc still 

 better developed at higher altitudes, although certain types, like 

 the climbing ferns {Lygodium) , are perhaps more abundant in the 

 lowland forest. 



