50 THE WORLD OF LIFE chap. 



larger western islands, Sumatra and Borneo, I can obtain 

 no estimate of the botanical riches, and the same is the case 

 with the whole of the Moluccas. Java is better known, but 

 still inadequately. There remains for consideration the 

 Philippines, Celebes, and New Guinea, as to which we have 

 recent information of considerable interest. 



Since the Americans have established themselves in the 

 Philippines they have done much to make known its natural 

 products ; and Mr. E. D. Merrill, botanist to the Bureau of 

 Science at Manilla, has greatly increased our former scanty 

 knowledge of its very interesting flora. He has been so 

 kind as to send me several of his published papers, as well 

 as a complete MS. list of the families and genera of vascular 

 plants, with the number of species known to inhabit the 

 islands up to August 1909. This shows the large total of 

 4656 indigenous flowering plants already collected, though 

 extensive areas in all the islands, and more especially in the 

 great southern island Mindanao, are altogether unexplored. 

 Besides these, there are no less than 791 ferns and their 

 allies, a number which is probably not surpassed in any 

 other country of equal extent and as imperfectly explored. 

 The Malay Peninsula has rather more flowering plants, but 

 its ferns are only 368, as given in Mr. Ridley's list, issued 

 in 1908. The following is the sequence for the first twelve 

 orders (excluding introduced plants) from Mr. Merrill's 

 lists : — 



Philippines (4656 species) 



Comparing this with the Malay Peninsula (p. 45), we 

 find the first four orders in similar places of the sequence, 

 while Anonaceae, Scitamineae, and Melastomaceae give way to 

 Myrtaceae, Palmae, and Asclepiadeae. 



The Philippine flora has a large proportion of its species 

 peculiar to it. In some families, such as the Ericaceae, Ges- , 



