VII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF KEDAH PEAK. 



V. Botany. 



By H. \\ Ridley., M.A.. C.M.G., F.R.S., F.L.S. 



Late Director of Gardens. Straits Settlements. 



\A short account of the physiography of the mountain and a list of 

 the Vertebrates obtained during the expedition has already been 

 published in this journal (Vol. VI. pp. 219, 244). H.C.R.] 



The Mountain of Kedah Peak, Gunong Jerai of the 

 Malays, has been visited by several botanists, the first of 

 whom appears to have been Thomas Lobb, who collected a 

 few plants there which are now in the Kew Herbarium; later, 

 Sir Hugh Low ascended it, accompanied by the well known 

 orchid collector, Boxall. In 1893 I visited it myself and 

 brought down a fairly extensive collection of the plants there. 

 Some account of this trip was published in the Journal of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society Straits branch, vol. 34, p. 23. Mohamed 

 Aniff, of the Penang Gardens, has also been there,* and now we 

 have an excellent collection made by Messrs. H. C. Robinson 

 and C. B. Kloss in December, 1915. The specimens were 

 gathered at a height of from 2,800 to 4,000 feet, and to these 

 are added a few collected at Gurun at the foot of the Peak. 



Among these are especially noticeable the additions of 

 two new genera to the flora and both of these species new to 

 science, viz. Myrioneuron (Rubiaceae) an Indo-Malayan genus, 

 and Eulalia, a fine grass allied to Indian species. There are 

 a number of other interesting species in the collection, notice- 

 ably the beautiful Jasmine/. Kedahense. A tall, white-flowered 

 Vaccinium V. eburueiun, another handsome new Xyris\, besides 

 the X. Ridleyi formerly obtained by me here, and the very rare 

 Acriopsis Ridleyi, of which the only specimen previously known 

 was a single plant found in a pepper garden in Singapore. 



The flora of Kedah Peak bears a considerable resemblance 

 to that of Mt. Ophir, especially in the occurrence of lowland 

 seashore plants at this altitude, isolated as they are from the 

 ordinary habitats of these plants by the forests which lie 

 between them and the sea. Tnis is perhaps most marked in 

 Mt. Ophir, but the occurrence here of such plants as Archy- 

 tea Vahlii, Adinandra dunwsa, Euthemis leucocarpa, Vaccinuan 

 Malaccense, Aneilema giganteum, Isachne rigida, typically plants 

 of open and usually sandy country distinctly suggest an 

 original flora of a sandy, littoral character of which these 



•Gardens Bulletin, Straits Settlements, I. No. 10, p. 353 (July 1916). 

 [A small list of Monocotyledons collected by Mohamid Hariri shortly before 

 our visit to the Hill.] 



t The Xyridaceas have unfortunately been omitted from Mr. Ridley's 

 Manuscript but will be published In a subsequent number of this Journal. 



