14 ON THE VEGETATION OF MALAYSIA, 



The best way to deal with the character of the flora as pro- 

 posed in this essay will be first to describe generally its features, 

 and then such subdivisions as arise from position, soil, climate, &c. 



Numerically the Malayan flora is very rich in genera and species. 

 Accurate figures cannot be given, but we may say that of dicotyle- 

 dons there are about 1,000 genera and 3,000 species. Of monoco- 

 tyledons 250 genera and say 1,000 species. This is a large 

 proportion, the average being usually about one-fourth in tropical 

 insular vegetation unless over very limited areas. But this 

 estimate is founded on the opinion of more than one collector and 

 botanist, and is borne out by the closely allied flora of the Philip- 

 pines. The G-YMNOSPERME^ are poorly represented. 



Having no accurate figures to go upon, I must depend in some 

 measure upon the estimates that have been made of some of the 

 neighbouring floras such as the Philippines, and particular islands 

 as Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes^ &c. In the Philippines 

 the proportion of vascular cryptogams to phsenogamic vegetation 

 is nearly one-eighth, chiefly ferns. "^ Of these 52 species were not 

 known from elsewhere at the time Mr. Rolfe wrote, or a pro- 

 portion of one-tenth of the ferns indigenous to the Philippines. 

 Since that time, however, the publication of Beddome's list of 

 Scortechini's ferns, f and Hose's papers on collections of ferns 

 made in West Borneo 1 has somewhat changed the numbers. 



There is one peculiarity about the Malayan flora which must 

 strike every observer, and that is the comparative absence of one 



* See Rolfe " On the Flora of the Philippine Islands." Jour. Linn. Soc. 

 Botany, XXI. (1886), p. 283. 



t "Jour, of Botany.'" Nov. 1887, XXV. p. 321, pi. 278. 



+ " Jour. Linn. Soc, Botany, XX. p. 222 ; XXIV. p. 258 ; also " Jour, 

 of Botany, XXVL p. 323. See also Cesati's Memoir in Vol. VII. of the 

 " Atti deir Accademia, delle Scienze Fisiche e Matematiche di Napoli ;" 

 J. G. Baker, "Jour, of Botany," VIII. p. 37 (1870) , and Burck's paper in 

 Vol. IV. of the "Annals of the Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg," p. 88 

 (1884). 



