( 55 ) 



The green colour, so often adduced in introductory outlines of botany as a character 

 for fresh water algae, is in India of little avail, for not a few animalculse of the most vivid 

 locomotion have here an intense green colouring. Snaaller or larger patches of a lovely emerald 

 green matter misled me repeatedly, although I had ascertained it on former occasions that they 

 consisted only of colonies of a beautiful emerald green Vorticclla. 



c. Vegetation of running waters. The vegetation of running waters is so poor in Pegu, 

 that I cannot mention a single phanerogamic plant, which might be rightly brought under 

 this head. The cause of this deficiency is to be found partially in the fact, that most of 

 the choungs dry up to such an extent, that no water plants can sustain themselves perma- 

 nently ; also, that most of the supposed species which inhabit running rivers are nothing 

 but elongated varieties of well known forms. Such elongation of water plants takes place 

 in Pegu, especially along the currents that traverse the swamps and inundated rioe-fields, 

 where we see many of the plants lengthened to an unusual extent, their foliage following 

 the same direction of growtL Such elongated forms occur especially among Alismacece, 

 Eleochat-is, Iso/epts, etc. 



The larger rivers of the plains may be destitute of them, because the soft alluvium does 

 not favour their growth. But whatever may be the true cause, all phanerogamic plants, 

 that I have seen (during the dry season) in choungs etc. were restricted to such parts of 

 these choungs, as formed stagnant pools or water courses, such as are called on the con- 

 tinent, old waters. Of cryptogamic plants, however. Algae are frequent enough, and 2 or 3 

 species of Spirogyra, Oscillaria, etc. attach themselves often to the rocky ground, elongating 

 in consonance with the rapidity of the waters. Brown gelatinous patches of Diatoms, 

 too, are frequently met on the ground of such running waters, with such Algae, as Anabaena, 

 Staurospermum, etc. 



13. Salticater-vegetation. 



The phanerogamic vegetation is poorly represented in the brackish waters, and becomes 

 almost extinct in the sea, where sea weeds find their home. 



We may first treat the vegetation of the brackish or tidal waters, and then that of 

 the salt waters. 



a. Vegetation of the tidal swamps, lakes, etc. The vegetation of the tidal waters, 

 whether running or stagnant, remains much the same ; the cause of this lies no doubt in 

 the movements to which both are subjected by the influence of the tides. However in 

 sheltered stagnant pools the vegetation is more crowded, while along the channels, it is 

 restricted to the borders. Of phanerogams are only such plants still found, as grow in the 

 ground. I never met with a freely floating phanerogam except where the water had 

 become so sweetened by the rains as to allow of a transition to sweet-water vegetation. 

 Besides the plants I alluded to, when treating of the tidal forests and which 1 referred 

 to as land- vegetation, I can only sum up the following few plants, which occurred to me in 

 truly brackish waters in the tidal zone of Pegu, viz. a Nitella ? Ceratophyllum and, but very 

 rarely, a Potamogeton. 



Algae, of course, are plentiful, but as the deltas of the Pegu rivers (at least so far as I have 

 explored them)* are formed of alluvium, they find no proper substratum to which to attach 

 themselves, and are generally poor in species. They are found, (in the absence of rocks, 

 etc.) chiefly on the roots and on the lower submerged part of stems of trees, as also on float- 

 ing or submerged wood and branches, while others attach themselves to water plants and 

 riparian grasses. Diatomaceae, Zi/gnemaceae and similar lower Algae are found also on the soft 

 mud. It would be idle to sum up the species of marine and tidal Algae, that are found here, 

 for they are the same as those which will be mentioned when treating the vegetation of the sea 

 itself. The marine Algae, however, do not go so far up the Pegu river, as they do on the 

 Ganges. Although Hypoglossum does inhabit the piles of wharfs at llangoon, it is very 

 rare there, while in the salt lakes, near Calcutta, a great profusion of marine Algae is met with. 



b. Vegetation of the sea. The vegetation of the sea in Pegu presents no phanerogams, 

 and the only two pelagic phanerogams I know in Burma, are Enhalus acoroides, frequent 

 along the coasts of the Andamans along shallow shores on sand-stone grounds, and a little 

 plant (Halophila Beccani) growing submerged on sand in dense patches in a saltwater channel 

 near the flag-stafi' at Akyab. 



The amount of mud in the river-water that is carried into the Martaban gulf is so enor- 

 mous, that for more than 30 miles from the shores of Pegu, no truly marine vegetation can 

 support itself, for the sea water is so sweetened and discoloured, that it resembles more a 

 tidal water. The number of sea weeds is therefore small and restricted to the shores, where 

 they grow analogically to those found in the tidal waters. 



The sea is divided by phycologists in a similar manner as the land, into zones and 

 regions. As a zone, the seas about Pegu belong to the Indian ocean. The depth of the sea 



* Towards BasBein laterite crops out in the alluvial delta, and there we may naturally expect a more 

 favourable barretit of Algae. 



