148 Natural History of the 



CHAPTER IX. 



NATUEAi HISTOET OF THE INDO-MALAY ISLANDS. 



In the first chapter of this work I have stated generally 

 the reasons which lead us to conclude that the large islands 

 in the western portion of the Archipelago — Java, Sumatra, 

 and Borneo — as well as the Malay Peninsula and the Philip- 

 pine Islands, have been recently separated from the conti- 

 nent of Asia. I now propose to give a sketch of the natural 

 history of these, which I term the Indo-Malay Islands, and 

 to show how far it supports this view, and how much infor- 

 mation it is able to give us of the antiquity and origin of the 

 separate islands. 



The flora of the Archipelago is at present so imperfectly 

 known, and I have myself paid so little attention to it, that 

 I can not draw from it many facts of importance. The Ma- 

 layan type of vegetation is however a very important one ; 

 and Dr. Hooker informs us, in his " Flora Indica," that it 

 spreads over all the moister and more equable parts of India, 

 and that many plants found in Ceylon, the Himalayas, the 

 Nilghiri, and Khasia mountains are identical with those of 

 Java and the Malay Peninsula. Among the more character- 

 istic forms of this flora are the rattans — climbing palms of 

 the genus Calamus, and a great variety of tall, as well as 

 stemless palms. Orchids, Araceae, Zinziberacece, and ferns 

 are especially abundant, and the genus Grammatophyllum — 

 a gigantic epiphytal orchid, whose clusters of leaves and 

 flower-stems are ten or twelve feet long — is peculiar to it. 

 Here, too, is the domain of the wonderful pitcher-plants 

 (Nepenthacese), which are only repi'esented elsewhere by 

 solitary species in Ceylon, Madagascar, the Seychelles, Cel- 

 ebes, and the Moluccas. Those celebrated fruits, the man- 

 gosteen and the durion, are natives of this region, and will 

 hardly grow out of the Archipelago. The mountain plants 

 of Java have already been alluded to as showing a former 



