PRELIMINARY REPORT 



ON THE 



FORESTS AND VEGETATION GENERALLY 



OF 



PEGU. 



By S. KURZ, Esq., Botanist on Special Duty. 



In Butmitting this report on the vegetation of Pegu, with special reference to the 

 forests of this province, I wish to remark, that I did not consider it necessary to go into 

 minute botanical details. Nor, indeed, would time have allowed me to do so ; for it is quite 

 impossible, in a few months only, to arrange and name carefully so many species of plants, 

 (about 2,200 species of phanerogams) as I have collected in Pegu. Consequently, the 

 determinations of most plants referred to in the following pages, are hand and eye determi- 

 nations, of comparatively little scientific value. My present object has been to draw up only 

 a general sketch of the vegetation of the country. 



Nor have I fully brought under review the many agencies that co-operate in the modi- 

 fication of vegetation, such as exposure and physical configuration of land, the influence of 

 greater masses of elevated hill ranges in connection with geographical latitude, that of winds 

 and of the neighbourhood of larger expanses of water, or the influence of temperature, of 

 subsoil, moisture of atmosphere, the intensity of solar radiation, &c. Nor am I able to 

 discuss here in a proper way such an important question as the influence of cliemical com- 

 position of soil and subsoil upon the presence or absence of certain plants. Although I have 

 collected a fair amount of material in this direction, it will take a good deal of time before 

 the chemical analyses of the specimens of soil collected can be executed, without which a 

 discussion of this question would be simply empirical, and therefore of little positive value. 



All the above-named conditions, or as they are more properly called, factors, oS'er so 

 many variations in Burma, that not only a longer stay in the country would be required, 

 in order to come to any reliable conclusions, but the full consideration of all these data 

 would far exceed the scope of a simple general report. For these reasons I have confined 

 my remarks to some of the most important and interesting questions connected with the 

 distribution of plants ; and these I have treated as briefly as possible, only occasionally and 

 cursorily introducing matters of a more scientific character, which may possibly interest 

 forest officers of a more inquiring turn of mind. 



I have treated of such questions in the present report, because there will be no opportuni- 

 ty to discuss them in my forthcoming book on the forest trees of Pegu, for the official instruc- 

 tions before me do not include the introduction of any other information beyond a description 

 of plants important to foresters, and a practical treatment of the forests, cursorily reviewed 

 also in this report, under 8. 



A proper practical review of the different varieties of forests will be given in my book, 

 after the whole of the Flora of Burma has been worked out ; for only after this has been 

 done will it become possible to give reliable scientific names of the trees, and to have them 

 accompanied by vernacular names. In the meantime I have given here such a practical 

 conspectus of the Pegu forests as above described, introducing in it only such Burmese names 

 for trees, &c., as appeared to me tolerably trustworthy. 



1 



