( 21- ) 



Ampclideae, and Anonaccae. In fact, low herbs and half- shrubs, of which the greater part are 

 light-loving, offer most of the exceptions, and seem to follow different laws from those 

 which govern woody plants. Sterculia and palms, however, are not strict exceptions, and may 

 safely be classed among the quick germinators and perishable seed-bearing plants ; so may 

 several others of those exceptions when the vitality of their seeds shall be known and properly 

 understood. 



Although the list of exceptions is considerable, it would appear to me that in Pegu, as 

 also in Malayan countries, quick germinators supersede slow germinators ; and, what is still 

 more perplexing, it seems, as far as my experience goes, that those trees which produce the 

 most perishable seeds, are also those which are most numerous in individuals and have the 

 greatest distribution over an area similar in climate and physical character. 



Another peculiarity, which deserves mention here, is the fact that many woody 

 plants that are introduced from hilly or rocky tracts into deep alluvial plains, often produce 

 no good seeds, or fail altogether to seed. This is important to know, for it tends to explain 

 the absence of many trees, that are common on older formations all round such allu- 

 vial plains. It would appear, although I speak here only empirically, that seeds of such trees 

 may be carried into the plains, and there germinate and grow up into trees, but that, owing to 

 certain unknown causes (possibly the peculiarity of soil), they have lost to a greater or less 

 degree their power to produce good seeds with a healthy embryo.* 



Dr. Sendtner has made the interesting observation, that the plants of certain tracts of 

 bog-grounds in Bavaria shew a remarkable unproductiveness and scantiness of fruit. Analyses 

 of such bog-waters have testified the absence of phosphate of lime, so necessary not only to 

 the production of seeds, but also to the formation of bone in cattle.f 



B. Botanical Description of Pegu, with special Consideration of the Forests. 



5. Position of the Flora with regard to surrotmding Floras, with a division of 



the Flora into natural zones. 



The Indian Flora, as a whole, is composed of fivej very different floras, viz : 



1. The Affghanistan and Siud Flora, an eastern extension of the Mediterranean Flora. 



2. The Hindostan Flora. 



3. The Himalayan Flora. 



4. The Eastern Indian Flora. 



5. The Malayan Flora, which includes Malacca and the Malayan Archipelago ; border- 

 ing to the South the Australian, and to the East the allied Polynesian Floras. 



Between Hindostan, the Himalayas and Eastern India a dead alluvial plain extends 

 (on the bed of an ancient sea), known as the Gangetic and Indus plains, which cannot pro- 

 perly be referred to any of the above Floras. It is botanically a neutral ground, at present 

 almost destitute of indigenous forests except along the sea-coast, and to a botanist a dreary 

 field for explorations. So poor is its Flora, that the whole of these alluvial plains number 

 not above 1300-1400 sp., and even Lower Bengal cannot boast of more than 900-1000 really 

 indigenous plants, amongst which agrarian, swamp, and aquatic plants and grasses pre- 

 dominate. 



* The game phenomenon takes place in any large garden situated on deep alluvium, the most unfortunate 

 site which could he selected. The number of woody plants that never seed, increases in ratio as the plants 

 become more and more exhausted. Sometimes, after many years' rest, a petrophilous tree may produce fertile 

 seeds, but these are rare exceptions, chiefly due to the accumulation of fallen leaves etc. that are allowed some- 

 times to collect and to moulder, thus returning to the soil a certain quantity of the chemical nourishment which 

 the trees have derived from it for a longer period. 



t However, this is hardly the trae cause here in the alluvial vegetation, and certainly is to a certam 

 degree in direct opposition to the fact, that alluvial plains produce the greatest amount of cereals, &c. Whatever 

 may be the cause of the reductive quality of alluvium, it is certainly not ascribable to competition of woody plants 

 with the powerful coarse grasses ; for if we leave the zone of savannahs and enter the lower mixed forests, these 

 grasses disappear, although alluvium is still the formation. In absence of sections I can only suggest that a 

 substratum of plastic retentive clay may exist which causes the waters to stagnate. 



X I have omitted from this classification the high Asian or Tibetan flora, which properly forms part of the 

 North -Asian flora,s. 



