IV 



TROPICAL FLORAS 47 



such ropes. The distinct ribbed leaf showing to the left of the 

 most twisted part is probably one of the Melastomacese. The 

 dwarf palms in the foreground are also very characteristic. 

 Just above where the twisted climber goes out of sight is a 

 climbing fern (Acrostichum scandens), and it seems to grow on 

 a knobbed or spined trunk like the one in the other picture. 

 A close examination will show that the five or six trunks of 

 tall trees visible have each peculiarities of growth or of bark 

 which prove them to belong to quite distinct species. The 

 very straight one to the left of the rope-climber is a palm. 

 The abundance of climbers is shown by the numerous very 

 fine white or black lines here and there crossing the picture, 

 especially in the lower portion, each representing a liana or 

 forest-cord striving to work its way upward to the light. 

 In the original photograph the tangled mass of foliage in 

 the foreground is seen to consist of a great variety of plants. 

 The fern with very narrow fronds at the base of the rope is 

 Nephrolepis cordifolia, while the large closely pinnate leaves 

 in the foreground, as well as the smaller ones, truncate at 

 the ends, are various species of palms. The prints, unfor- 

 tunately, do not show all the details in the original 

 photographs. 



Professor O. Beccari, in the interesting volume on his 

 explorations in Borneo, tells us that when building a house 

 on the Mattang mountain in Sarawak, three straight trees, 

 each about 9 inches diameter, were found growing at such a 

 distance and position as to be exactly suitable for three of 

 the corner posts of the house in which he afterwards resided 

 during some months' collecting there. When the tops were 

 cut off, and he could examine them, he found them to 

 belong to three different genera of two natural orders, and 

 also that they were all new species probably peculiar to 

 Borneo. Another illustration he gives of the great pro- 

 ductiveness of these forests in species of trees is, that in 

 the two months he lived in his forest home he obtained fifty 

 species of Dipterocarps (an order in which he was much 

 interested) in two months' collecting and within a mile of 

 his house. This order of plants consists entirely of large 

 forest-trees, and is especially characteristic of the true Malay 

 flora from the Peninsula to Java, Celebes, and the Philip- 



