BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS. 35 



anyone was able to get to the summit ; but it is full of fissures 

 and cavities which are overgrown with a luxuriant and apparently 

 peculiar vegetation, differing from that of the country around. 

 At Selangore, at the limestone caves, I was able to make a good 

 collection of plants, but they were mostly Lycopods and Ferns. 

 Similar limestone cliffs are found in the Calamianes and Cuyos 

 Groups, amongst both of which I collected plants, but not many, 

 as the difficulty of getting on to the rocks was nearly as great 

 here as at Gunong Pondok. Ferns and Lycopods were, as usual, 

 the principal spoils, with, in the Philippines at least, a Tristania. 



DiPTEROCARPEiE. — This is a natural order of fine forest trees 

 with conspicuous fragrant flowers, yielding good timber and valu- 

 able aromatic resins, balsams, and oils. It is an order which 

 stands aloof, so that its limits can be concisely defined. Its 

 peculiarities are the long wing-like lobes of the calyx, with 

 nerves like the root-scales of a fern, and generally rich'y coloured 

 from red to brown. The leaves have rolled-up stipules like the 

 Magnolias, and they terminate the branches with a taper point ; 

 the foliage is like that of an oak tree, and as in oaks the coty- 

 ledons perform their office without rising above the ground. The 

 cup of the acorn and similar organs in the filbert, chestnut, beech, 

 &c., are represented in the hardened calyx of these trees, which 

 have a tendency to sacrifice all the ovules but one. The order 

 flourishes best in the Malayan region, and is confined to tropical 

 eastern Asia. The species range on the west from Assam, through 

 eastern Bengal to Ceylon. Eastward they extend through 

 Burmah and Siam to Cambodia and the Philippines. Southward 

 they are found in the Andaman Islands, the Malayan Peninsula, 

 Borneo, Sumatra, and Banka; but only to a small extent is the 

 family at present known east of Wallace's line through the Straits 

 of Macassar. 



The order was discovered in 1798 ; four species of Dlpterocarpus 

 were sent to Sir Joseph Banks by Dr. B. Hamilton from Sumatra. 

 But the order was not defined until 1825 by Gaertner. At that 

 time a dozen species were not known, and now there are upwards 



