214 OUTLINE OF PLANT GEOGRAPHY 



matra. It is a magnificent plant, with great palm-like leaves four 



yards long. 



The two mountains guarding the delta of the Sarawak River, 

 Mattang and Santubong, arc fairly easy of access, and their 

 floras arc extremely interesting. Mattang, which for some reason 

 is avoided by the natives, has never been denuded of forest, and 

 affords an admirable opportunity of studying the primitive vegeta- 

 tion of the region. 



The forest is a very rich one. Very tall trees, including many 

 Dipterocarpaeeae, like those of Indo-China and the Malay States, 

 are bound together by great lianas, like huge cables, or with climb- 

 ing Araceae and other creepers, clinging to their trunks, which 

 with the branches are often smothered in a profusion of epiphytic 

 growths of all kinds. 



Below the tall trees are smaller ones, with an extraordinary 

 variety of palms, giant ferns, wild bananas, rattans and a host 

 of other striking plants. The Dipterocarp forest at the foot of 

 the mountain is more open, being freer from undergrowth, and 

 easier to get through; but as one ascends the mountain, the under- 

 growth is very dense, and one must exercise great care not to lose 

 one's way in the thick jungle. 



The wet banks along the trail are covered with beautiful ferns, 

 liverworts and mosses, and although flowers are not very abundant 

 or conspicuous, there were several worthy of notice. One of the 

 prettiest was a Didymocarpus (Gesneraceae), with small fox- 

 glove shaped flowers, pale purple in color, borne on slender stalks 

 rising from a rosette of dark green, almost black leaves, veined 

 with snowy white. These dainty flowers grew abundantly on the 

 mossy banks associated with delicate ferns, and made an ex- 

 quisite picture. An occasional showy orchid, and some pretty 

 Begonias were seen, and in one place, a number of plants of a 

 pale yellow rhododendron (R. salici folium) . In the upper forest, 

 a handsome Ixora, with scarlet flowers, somewhat like Bouvardia, 

 was abundant. 



Mt. Mattang has an especial interest to the botanist, as Pro- 

 fessor Beccari, the great authority on palms, spent a long time 

 here, and many of his species were first collected on this mountain. 



The Dipterocarpaeeae, so important as timber-trees through- 

 out the Indo-Malayan region, are represented by many species in 



