210 OUTLINE OF PLANT GEOGRAPHY 



larger islands of the Archipelago. Both are very handsome with 

 large fan-shaped leaves borne on tall stalks. Matonia is especially 

 interesting as it is almost the only survivor of a very old family, 

 and for a long time was known only from a single locality, Mt. 

 Ophir in Malacca. 



While the Malay Peninsula is rich in ferns, and epiphytic mosses 

 and liverworts, the ground liverworts are less abundant than 

 might be expected from the general luxuriance of the vegetation. 

 Whether or not this is due to the prevailing character of the soil, 

 is a question. The rocks of the Peninsula are mostly granitic, 

 and the coarse gritty soil resulting from the decomposition of these 

 rocks does not seem to meet the needs of these plants. In the 

 limestone region, there were species not found elsewhere, but no- 

 where in the Peninsula were they so abundant as in the volcanic 

 regions of Java and Sumatra. 



The Sunda Islands 



The three great islands adjacent to the coast of the Malay 

 Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java, exhibit in the highest 

 degree, the exuberant development of the equatorial Malayan 

 vegetation. Both the plant and animal life indicate that these 

 islands, at no very distant epoch, were united to the Asiatic main- 

 land. 



Borneo, the largest of these islands, separated from Singapore by 

 about 400 miles of the shallow Java Sea, is still very incompletely 

 known, as much of its nearly 300,000 square miles is an unexplored 

 wilderness. The coastal regions of Sarawak in the west have been 

 quite extensively explored botanically, as the country has been 

 under British domination for nearly a century, and is compara- 

 tively easy of access. 



Borneo is to a great extent mountainous, but there are large 

 expanses of lowland swamp and forest in the coastal districts. 

 There is a central range of mountains, attaining a maximum height 

 of about 10,000 feet, and from this range, others diverge, with 

 plateaus lying between the ranges. The main range is composed 

 partly of ancient crystalline schists, and in British North Borneo, 

 Kinabalu, the highest mountain in the island, is a granite mass, 

 rising to 13,698 feet. Deposits of limestone are found in some 



