( 62 ) 



very few others) demonstrates the importance of the study of forest trees in any question of 

 phytogeography. 



In Burniah a large number of exotic ornamental plants are in cultivation, and not an in- 

 conspicuous part of them are met with in Burman gimleus. Even Karens have American 

 flower-plants in their remote and isolated toungyas. Ample facilities are therefore given 

 to the plants in question to disseminate and spread, but in spite of that tiie number of 

 really established exotic plants in Pegu is exceedingly small in comparison with Bengal and 

 other countries in India ; and these few are restricted to the cultivated plains or to waste 

 places in and around villages, while in the toungyas of the Karens those that still shew 

 themselves in the first years of abandonment, disappear as quickly and completely as all 

 other plants of an agrarian or savannah character. The cause of this appears to be here the 

 same as it is in the Andamaus : the woody terrain and savannahs of Pegu are not favourable to 

 the growth of most of these ornamental plants. Even small trees, like Bixn, Carica and Bicinm 

 settle themselves only along the banks of choungs, and there only scantily enough. 



The half indigenous plants in Pegu are the following: Adenolepis, plentiful; Tridax 

 j)rociimbens locally, Angeionia, locally, Gomphrcna glohosa, Ricinus communis, Bixa Orcllana 

 seldom, Asc/epias curassamca, passim, and Impatien'i Bahamina. These are all that can 

 be considered as established, although strictly speaking only the first named enters the flora 

 as an element. There are, besides, others of the more cultivated forms, which spring up 

 occasionally, especially on waste places in and near villages, along the courses of streams and 

 rivers and also on neglected toungyas or gardens. Their existence, however, is too ephe- 

 meral to admit of their being fairly grouped with- established species. They appear and 

 disappear, like other weeds, according as a locality is subjected to changes arising from 

 thinning or overcrowding, and must be looked upon as mere escapes from cultivation or 

 gardens. 



8. A practical com^pcctus of the forests of Pegu alone. 



In the former pages I have treated of the plants and of the vegetation generally of Pegu 

 on a more extended scale for the use of the higher grades of foresters who must necessai-ily 

 be acquainted with the physical sciences generally, and who can be expected also to have such 

 botanical knowledge, as is indispensable to a forester of education in India. 



It remains now for me to give also such a simplified and short review of the forests, 

 that those who have undergone no botanical training whatever, may be enabled to recog- 

 nise, at least in the greater number of cases, the kind of forest through which they may 

 pass. I have restricted myself, in doing so, to that part of the country which lies between 

 the Irrawaddi and Sittang rivers, and which I have already specified as Pegu proper. The 

 Burmans have, so far as I could make out, no distinct denominations for all the varieties of 

 forests, which I have distinguished, and it would be really desirable, that there should be 

 created names for at least the more conspicuous classes of forest, by which intercourse be- 

 tween the forester and the native forest people would be greatly facilitated. At present one 

 has to ask a Burman for the trees that grow in a forest, in order to recognise from them the 

 kind of forest one enquires for, but even such information is not always sufficient in localities 

 where forests of different kinds alternate with each other at short intervals. 



I shall now follow the same principles as already laid down in my former paragraphs, 

 simplifying the matter by restricting myself to what might be called the external character- 

 istics of those forests. 



Forests are either evergreen, when they retain their leaves all the year round ; or 

 are leaf-shedding, when they shed their leaves at any time during the cold or hot season of 

 the year. 



If the waters that take their course through or along such evergreen forests, are saline 

 or brackish, we may with confidence presume, that we have littoral forests before us. Such 

 trees and shrubs likepyoo ( Rhizophora) ; Pinlay-kyoung-ben (Clerodendron inerme), Kam- 

 bala (Sonneratia apetalaj ; tamoo (Sonneratia Grijfithii), boo-tayat ( A eg iter as coniiculata) , 

 Khayah (Acanthus ilicifolius) , ka-yoo (Pluchea ImiicaJ, ta yan (Excoecaria Agalhcha) are 

 sure indications of a littoral forest, no matter what other trees and shrubs grow beside them. 

 Practically (at least according to the notion of the present foresters in Burma) these forests 

 are of no importance and are rarely, if ever, visited by them. Piulay deiu might be an appro- 

 priate Burmese term for these forests. 



Again, if we enter an evergreen forest, where we find the waters quite sweet, and where 

 the stems of trees shew such marks as lead us to infer that they stand during the rains 

 under water- to a certain height, we have every reason to expect this to be a swamp-forest. 

 In a forest of this sort we have such trees and shrubs* prevailing, as dhae lay (Si/mplocos 



* I regret to say that I find myself surrounded with great difficulties in giving the names of truly charac- 

 teristic forms growing in this and the following kinds of forests. 1 have trie<i in vaiu to obtain a correct Bur- 

 mese name fur many plants, which form the principal feature of such forests, aa lor iustauce ioi Acrocarpus, 

 SwiiUonia, etc. in the tropical forests. 



