Chap. VI] EDAPHIC INFLUENCES IN THE TROPICS 391 



dark-green succulent leaves are pendulous, and like brambles and other simple 

 scramblers form tangled thickets, unless they find a support ; also the tropical 

 cosmopolitan Scaevola Koenigii (Fig. 210), belonging to the Goodeniaceae, a family 

 otherwise almost confined to Australia, is one of the most remarkable plants of 

 littoral vegetation, thanks to its long and frequently bent shoots which interlace 

 to form a tangled mass, to its large succulent leaves, and to its large panicles of 

 wonderfully white flowers from which white-ribbed stone fruits develop. 



In such stations in the Malay Archipelago, and probably elsewhere in Eastern 

 x\sia, shrubs and herbs are frequently bound together, and overgrown by a dense 

 tangle of the green and red thread-like stems of Cassytha filiformis. 



The shrubs and small trees which, on the side towards the sea, stand 

 apart, become more closely set as their distance above high-tide mark 

 increases — immediately above the latter, indeed, in quiet creeks — so as 

 to form closed woodland that assumes the character of forest, bush, or 

 scrub. 



iii. LITTORAL WOODLAND ABOVE HIGH-TIDE MARK. 



Woodland formations on the sandy and gravelly shore were first 

 described by Junghuhn in connexion with Java, and by Kurz in connexion 

 with Pegu. From the occurrence of many of their characteristic species 

 over a great portion of the Old World the wide distribution of such forma- 

 tions may be surmised ; but little is known regarding this. Engler 

 mentions littoral woodland in East Africa, where however it does not 

 appear to cover extensive areas. Nothing is known about its possible 

 occurrence in West Africa, and I cannot remember having seen anything 

 like it in tropical America, although trees like Coccoloba uvifera are 

 not lacking on the shore outside the mangrove. The bush on sandy 

 coasts in Brazil termed ' restinga ' appears to be devoid of the halophytic 

 character. 



I have met with littoral woodland, in particular on the north coast of 

 Java (Fig. 213), on the small coral islands in the Java Sea and on the 

 island of Singapore, as low or moderately high forest, occasionally inter- 

 rupted by scrub or by scantily clad stretches of sand. The following 

 description I wrote on the spot, in a forest not far from Priok in Java ; 

 but it applies equally well to the other littoral forests that I know: — 



' When once we have broken through the dense tangle of branches, that 

 are as it were tied together by the red and green threads of Cassytha, 

 and have entered the interior of the forest (Fig. 214). we meet with a scene 

 radically unlike that of most tropical forests, at least those of humid 

 districts. From the sandy or stony soil, which is bare or covered by only 

 a few scattered dead leaves, there rise up tree-trunks which are either 

 naked, or decked with some few thick-leaved epiphytes, species of Hoya and 

 Dischidia for example, and small crustaceous lichens, and these are often 



