ON A COLLECTION OF PLANTS FROM GUNONG MENG- 

 KUANG LEBAH, SELANGOR. 



By H. N. RIDLEY, m.a., c.m.g., f.r.s. 

 Late Director of Gardens, Straits Settlements. 



[The collection reported on by Mr. Ridley was obtained in 

 January and February, 1913, by the Dyak collectors of the Federated 

 Malay States Museum on Gunong Mengkuang Lebah at a height 

 between 4,800 and 5,800 feet. The mountain is a long razor 

 backed ridge, gently sloping up^^ards from S.S.E. to N.N.W. on the 

 main peninsular range dividing Selangor from Pahang, and has been 

 visited on numerous occasions within the last few years though this 

 is the first considerable botanical collection therefrom. 



The present gathering represents the flora of the uppermost zone 

 only but the mountain is heavily forested throughout. Up to about 

 2,500 feet various species of bamboo are very common and are suc- 

 ceeded above that level by a zone of palms, amongst which Licuala 

 and a form of Livistona close to L. tahanensis, Becc, are the most 

 characteristic. As in other hills the vegetation close to the main 

 ridge becomes knarled and stunted and densely carpeted with wet 

 moss. It is in this zone that the various species of Rhododendron 

 are mainly found while amongst the herbaceous plants two species of 

 Burmannia are the most conspicuous. A giant species of Pandanus, 

 from which the mountain takes its name, is very common as is also a 

 very slender Calamus affording an excellent I'otan. Kayii manis or 

 cinnamom, but of little commercial value, is also very abundant. The 

 characteristic zerophytic vegetation to which Mr. Ridley alludes is 

 only found an knolls and hillocks on the extreme summits and ridges 

 while thirty feet down the "rain forest" zone is entered. The whole 

 of both zerophytic and rain forest zone is very dense and tangled and 

 only traversable with great labour except where game tracks, made by 

 the larger Malay i-hinoceros i2. sondaicus, (which is fortunately 

 numerous), occur. The formation is granite throughout and the 

 summit ridges for the last two or three hundred feet consist mainly of 

 enormous boulders piled one on each other. 



The fauna, which is now well known, is that of the other mountain 

 tops of the main range, but bears and siamang are numerous. The 

 former are very fond of the cinnamon bai^k. — H. C. R.] 



The collection obtained on this mountain is very representative of 

 the general flora of the higher ranges of the Malay Peninsula. It is 

 interesting to note that in species which have adapted themselves to 

 these mountain tops there is a great tendency to a shortening of the 

 bi'anches, accompanied by a thickened and more coriaceous foliage, 

 which also has a tendency to become more rounded in outline and 

 blunt or even I'etuse at the tip. This is illustrated in this collection 



