254 



ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. 



several ' Floras ' the data bearing on this question for individual species. 

 Only works that are founded on local experience extending over a number 

 of years can be utilized ; in others, one will usually find that month given 

 as the flowering period in which particular specimens happened to be 

 collected. However, the occasional use of such collectors' data in part 

 of the works that I have used is not excluded ; but Brandis' data in his 

 Forest Flora of North-West and Central India may be accepted with 

 absolute confidence ; Koorders and Valeton also, the editors of a Tree- 

 Flora of Java, now coming out in parts, have paid critical attention tc 

 this question. Besides these works, the three published volumes o: 

 Trimen's Flora of Ceylon and Schomburgk's catalogue of the Flora o 

 Guiana have been utilized. In all these works, the favourable influent 

 of the dry seasons on the development of flotvers could he most clcarl 

 recognized. The flowering time of most of the species, and especially, fo 

 reasons already given, that of woody plants, coincides with the end oj 

 the dry season and the very commencement of the rainy season. I 



Koorders and Valeton's work promises when completed to afford the mos 

 important material for investigating the connexion between the flowering timi 

 and the season of the year, on the one hand, because of the care with which thi 

 data were collected, and on the other, because differences of temperature are o 

 no concern in Java. So far, therefore, as the climate in Java influences th 

 flowering time, it can act onlj' b}- differences in the atmospheric precipitations. 



Of 22S species whose flowering time is given, in 53 species it is uniformly dis 

 tributed throughout the j'ear, in 12 it commences in the wet season (Decembc 

 to March) and continues into the dry season ; therefore in 65 species, or aboi 

 29 %, atmospheric precipitations have no decided influence on the flowering tinif 

 In 142 species, or about 63 %, the flowering time is limited to the dry se.aso 

 (April to Novemberj, either entirelj- or for the most part. Onlj' about 18 specie 

 or not quite 8 %, blossom solelj' during the rainv season. 



The annexed table gives a summarj- of these data : — 



CLIMATE AND FLOWERING TIME IN LWA. 



Mean temperature. 



Dec. Jan 



Feb. 



Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. [.Sept. Oct. | Mo 



Batavia (annual 25-8) . 



25-6 



25-3 25-4 



25-8 ! 26-3 



26-4 



26-0 



!S7 



26-0 26-3 126-4 i 26- 



Rainfall in % West Java . 



II 19 



East Java . 



16 I 22 



1.4 



o-s 



Flowering time in % of species 



Flowering time independent 

 of the rainfall 



Rainfall 61-5 % 



Rainfall 38-2 % 



% 



63% 



29% 



The district dealt with in Brandis' book is less instructive, because, especial' 



