Botanical Notices from Java. 473 
some isolated specimens are still met with here and there, we saw a 
quantity of ant-paths, formed of a brownish earth. ‘They lead up to 
the nests, which are seen hanging in shapeless brown clumps at a 
great height on the stems. On the limit of the coffee-plantations, 
which we soon reached, grows in freshly turned-up soil a small 
Balsamina ; but frequent above all Ageratum conyzoides, which was 
here not higher than two to six inches, and so dense that the whole 
district appeared coloured bluish by its heads of flowers. 
We now entered the dark shade of the primitive forests, and hung 
our barometers on the next tree (Dr. Forsten his Engelfield’s baro- 
meter, and I my Fortin’s), which gave for the forest-limit a height 
of 4590 feet, consequently a vertical space for the coffee-plantations 
from Bodjong-Keton to this spot of 1376 feet. As we proceeded we 
found the moist soil of the wood, which was covered with mosses 
and lycopodiums, ornamented with a beautiful little plant, which 
grows here in plenty, and discovers itself readily by its azure-blue 
flowers and the purple under surface of its leaves as Scutellaria 
indica, lu. 
Rasamalas had disappeared on the limits of the coffee-plantations, 
and with them the tree-ferns (Chnoophora glauca). In their place 
numerous trees, belonging to the family of the Laurels (Laurine), 
now occurred, but above all chestnuts, oaks, and Schima Noronha, 
among which Fagree were also still seen. Their trunks were in- 
deed less gigantic than those of the Rasamalas, but they are more 
thickly overgrown with Orchidee and ferns, more luxuriantly en- 
twined with species of Freycinetie and Calamus, more frequently 
coated with numerous nest-ferns, and thus form a very shady and 
dark wood. In this wood grows solitarily, differing in this respect 
from the allied Acacie, Acacia Saltuum, Jgh., a slender little tree 
with almost pyramidal crowns and branches, which originate at dif- 
ferent heights one above another, at the upper end of the trunk, and 
extend in an almost horizontal direction. A peculiar disease and 
protuberance of their leaf-petioles, which change into brownish ex- 
erescences, called to mind the beautiful Inga montana, Jgh. 
Between the stems of the trees, overtopping the lower shrubs, 
which are composed of hundreds of different species, and fill up all 
the intervening space, is seen the Areca glandiformis, Willd., the 
little stems of which, hung with scarlet berries, notwithstanding 
their smallness, still exhibit the slender majesty of their family, 
But, besides isolated Orchidee, the ground in the woods is adorned 
by a small white-blossomed Solanum (S. Rhinozerotis, Bl.?), Bego- 
nia repanda, Bl. En. 1. p. 97; Polygonum corymbosum, Willd., the 
form of whose leaf varies remarkably; several species of Strobi- 
lanthes, with knotty-jointed upright stems, and above all Ardisia 
coccinea, Jgh., whose little stem, scarcely three feet high, but woody 
and straight, bears round berries, of the most glowing scarlet. All 
the stalks of these plants rise out of dense beds of mosses, among 
which two tree-shaped ones, similar to our Leskea dendroides, seve- 
ral inches tall, especially catch the eye (Bryum ferrugineum, Jgh.), 
and a sterile undetermined species with a little stalk four inches 
Ann, & Mag. N. Hist. Vol.xvu. Suppl. 2K 
