224 OUTLINE OF PLANT GEOGRAPHY 



Java 



Probably no region in the world offers more to the botanical 

 student than does Java, and because of the amazing wealth of the 

 flora, and its accessibility, it has been visited by many botanists 

 during the past century, and its flora is better known than that 

 of any other part of the Malayan region. 



Java is preeminently a volcanic country and contains many 

 active volcanoes as well as numerous extinct ones. The volcanic 

 soils are extremely rich, and together with the uniform high tem- 

 perature and very heavy rainfall, induce a luxuriance of vegetation 

 in many parts of Java, especially in the west, that can hardly be 

 matched elsewhere. 



Unlike Borneo and Sumatra, Java is very densely populated, 

 and most of the available land is under cultivation. As elsewhere 

 in Malaya, rice is the staple food, and is very carefully cultivated; 

 but in addition to rice, practically all the tropical food-plants are 

 grown, and the variety of fruits, especially, can hardly be equalled 

 anywhere. In spite of the dense population, about 30,000,000 

 in an area less than 50,000 square miles, there is little evidence of 

 this to the casual observer in western Java. The people live for 

 the most part in small villages, "campongs," composed of bamboo 

 houses so hidden by the groves of palms, bamboos, and fruit-trees, 

 as to be quite invisible except at close range; and from an eleva- 

 tion the country appears to be covered by an unbroken forest, 

 except for the larger towns and extensive rice fields. 



Under the wise administration of the Netherlands government, 

 Java is probably the most successful tropical colony in the world, 

 and the output of all sorts of tropical products, rubber, coffee, 

 sugar, tobacco, etc., is very great, and the country is extremely 

 prosperous. Among the most important products of Java is 

 quinine, which, introduced from South America, has been most 

 successfully grown, and by careful selection trees have been devel- 

 oped which yield a much greater amount of quinine than any of 

 the wild species of Cinchona. 



Java is extremely mountainous, there being very little level 

 country. Along much of the northern shores are mangrove and 

 Nipa swamps, but the southern side of the island has a greater 

 development of sandy beaches and dunes. The high mountains 



