354 ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. I 



Among the herbs, which never cover the ground, the Scitamineae are prominent. 

 Besides, there are numbers of grasses, Araceae, Compositae, Malvaceae, and 

 so forth. 



The trees bear as epiphytes, mosses (Neckera, Metirium), various common 

 orchids, ferns and asclepiads, besides remarkably numerous and diversified 

 parasitic Loranthaceae. 



The savannah-forest in Pegu appears under various forms, which Kurz describes 

 as ' eng-forest,' or ' laterite-forest,' 'low forest' and 'savannah-forest.' 'Eng 1 is 

 the native name for Dipterocarpus tuberculatus, which is characteristic of the first 

 form of forest. 



' Eng-forest " occurs chiefly on laterite, but also, although in a less developed 

 form, on various diluvial soils. The height of the leaf-canopy on pure laterite soil 

 is about 30 to 40 feet, on more clayey or loamy soil about 70 to 80 feet. Most 

 of the trunks have fissured thick scaly bark and remarkably thick knotty and 

 crooked stems. Dipterocarpus tuberculatus predominates on purely laterite soils ; 

 on other kinds of soil it is scanty, or absent. More than forty other species of 

 trees besides are usually abundant. There are Dipterocarpaceae (Shorea, Pent- 

 acme), Meliaceae (Walsura), Dilleniaceae (Dillenia), Celastraceae (Lophopetalum), 

 Rhamnaceae (Zizyphus), Anacardiaceae (Buchanania, Melanorrhoea), Styracaceae 

 (Symplocos), Diospyraceae (Diospyros), Myrsinaceae (Myrsine), Euphorbiaceae 

 (Phyllanthus, Aporosa), Papilionaceae (Dalbergia, Xylia), Rubiaceae (Wendlandia, 

 Nauclea, Randia, Gardenia), Combretaceae (Terminalia), Myrtaceae (Careya, 

 Eugenia), Lythraceae (Lagerstroemia), Loganiaceae (Strychnos Nux-vomica), and 

 many others intermingled in the greatest confusion. Growing between the trees 

 there are bamboos (B. Tulda and B. stricta), an acaulous palm (Phoenix acaulis), 

 low very sparse shrubs, among which the author, strangely enough, also includes 

 large herbaceous plants, even annuals, and a few lianes that scarcely climb. The 

 grass on the ground is usually very richly developed (Andropogoneae, Paniceae, 

 Cyperaceae), and is intermingled with numerous small herbaceous plants (Malva- 

 ceae, Acanthaceae, Rubiaceae, Campanulaceae, Gentianaceae, Scrophulariaceae, 

 Labiatae, Papilionaceae, Compositae, Scitamineae, Amaryllidaceae, Orchidaceae, 

 Commelinaceae, Eriocaulaceae, and so forth. 



A crowd of epiphytic orchids, species of Hoya, ferns (Platycerium for instance), 

 grow in great numbers on the branches of the trees. 



The ' low forest " resembles the eng-forest in its growth, and is to be considered 

 as systematically intermediate between the eng-forest and the ' lower mixed forest.' 

 Its soil is richly overgrown with Andropogoneae or with Imperata cylindrica. 



Kurz's ' savannah-forest ' has the same height as the eng-forest. It grows on 

 deep alluvial soil, especially near rivers. The trunks of the trees are very short, 

 often hardly taller than the so-called elephant-grass (species of Andropogon, Coix, 

 Saccharum, Phragmites) that covers the ground ; the crowns are very strongly 

 developed and often flattened above. The species of trees are partly identical with 

 those in the ' lower mixed forest.' It is a typical savannah-forest. 



The greatest part of the forest in East Java may be described as 

 a transition form between rain-forest and monsoon-forest, but edaphic 

 influences there, as generally in climatic transitional districts, are very 



