IV 



TROPICAL FLORAS 73 



destroyed. Yet Mr. Ridley finds it to have recently con- 

 tained 1740 species, and when the town was founded and 

 the forest untouched, it almost certainly had 2000 or even 

 more. 



We have seen also that Lagoa Santa in South Brazil, 

 2700 feet above sea-level, with a much smaller area than 

 Penang, and a much less favourable climate, has one-third 

 more species, mainly collected by one enthusiastic botanist 

 during three years' work in this limited district. Here are no 

 mountains, the whole country being an undulating plateau, 

 while for six months there is so little rain that the trees 

 almost all lose their leaves. The aridity causes the trees to 

 be mostly stunted and unshapely ; the leaves are clothed on 

 one or both surfaces with felt or dense hairs ; and the stems 

 of herbaceous plants are often swollen into thick tubers 

 either underground or just above it. There is thus a mani- 

 fest struggle for existence against the summer drought with 

 intense sun-heat, and it would hardly be imagined that under 

 such conditions the number of species would equal or exceed 

 that of some of the most luxuriant parts of the tropics. 



I will now pass on to a consideration of the two last 

 items in the table of small tropical floras, which are more 

 instructive and even amazing than any I have met with in 

 the course of this inquiry. When I was in Java about fifty 

 years ago I ascended the celebrated mountains Ged^ and 

 Pangerango, the former an active, and the latter, much the 

 higher, an extinct volcano. The two, however, form one 

 mountain with two summits. During the ascent I was much 

 impressed by the extreme luxuriance of the forest-growth, 

 and especially of the undergrowth of ferns and herbaceous 

 plants. I was told by the gardener in charge of the nursery 

 of cinchonas and other plants, that 300 species of ferns had 

 been found on this mountain, and I think 500 orchids. I 

 was therefore anxious to learn if any figures for the plants of 

 the whole mountain could be obtained, and was advised by 

 the Director of Kew Gardens to apply to Dr. S. Koorders 

 of the Reijks Museum, Leiden. In reply to my inquiries, 

 Dr. Koorders wrote me as follows : — 



" The botanical mountain-reserve on the Gede (Pangerango) is 

 indeed very interesting and very rich, but I know other parts of 



