A BIBLIOGRAPHIC ENUMERATION 

 OF BORNEAN PLANTS 



By E. D. MERRILL. 



Botanist, Bureau of Science, and Professor of Botany, 

 University of the Philippines, Manila, P.I. 



Borneo is situated on a submarine plateau of no great 

 depth, and manifestly is geologically allied to the Malay 

 Peninsula, Sumatra, and Java, and in past geologic times 

 undoubtedly formed a continuous land mass with these three 

 areas and probably with other islands of Malaya, at some time 

 perhaps including the Philippines, the Moluccas, and New Guinea. 

 It is one of the larger islands of the World, the equator crossing 

 it at about the middle. Its greatest length is about 830 miles, 

 from the north-east to the south-west, and its maximum breadth 

 is about 600 miles. In area it approximates 290,000 square 

 miles, roughly about five times the area of England and Wales 

 combined. Its general character is mountainous, the various 

 ranges dividing it into more or less well defined areas, the 

 mountains as to altitude culminating in Mount Kinabalu at the 

 north-eastern end of the Island, which attains an altitude of 

 13,455 feet. Mount Kinabalu is exceeded in height in the 

 whole Malayan region only by certain peaks in New Guinea, 

 the highest of which is Mount Wilhelmina, 15,580 feet, the top 

 of which is covered with perpetual snow. Numerous other 

 mountains in Borneo attain altitudes of from 4,000 to 10,000 

 feet. 



In all essential characters the Bornean flora, manifestly a 

 very rich one, is of the same general type as that of the 

 surrounding regions; Indo-China to the north; the Malay 

 Peninsula to the north-west; Sumatra to the west; Java to the 

 south; Celebes and the Moluccas to the east; and the Philippines 

 to the north-east. In general the same families and genera 

 are dominant over the entire region, yet each individual area 

 presents a certain number of endemic genera, and apparently 

 without exception a relatively high percentage of endemic 

 species. In some parts of this vast area certain families of 

 plants are much more highly developed in individual species 

 than in other parts, but generally speaking the large families 

 are the same in each part of the whole Indo-Malayan region. 

 Certain characters of the Bornean flora and its phytogeographic 

 elements are discussed below. 



