24 



The korano of Koebre was quite a superior man, a blood-brother of 

 Manao's, who brought him up to me, when he presented me with splendid 

 potatoes and corn-cobs, and I gave him knives and a "kain" J in return. 



It was interesting to note how the character of the surrounding forest, 

 even in such a small area as this lake-basin, varied with the exposure. The 

 eastern slopes were characterized by mossy forest, while to the south-e;ist 

 Araucaria Beccarii predominate.!, gregarious and in groups, to near the 

 water's edge (PL 1. fig. 1). To the north and north-east the forest was not so 

 homogeneous, older Libocedrus arfakensis and Podocarpus papuanus, with the 

 graceful palm Kentia Gibbsiana, standing out above the mass level, both on 

 the slopes and the ridge. On the western slopes of Koebre it was much drier 

 in type. 



The most fertile part was the isolated patch of intermediate mossy forest 

 behind our camp, which reminded me of Fiji in its beautiful moss-flora and 

 wealth of creeping orchids. The possibilities of this patch, though continually 

 worked through, seemed inexhaustible. 



Accompanied by two of the " Pradjoerit," Manao and his friend the 

 Alfuero korano, with the latter's two delightful boys, most keen to help in 

 collecting and looking for plants, I spent a day on Koebre. We crossed the 

 lake on two of the rafts tied together, following Dr. Gjellerup's advice. It 

 was a very tedious journey, taking about an hour and a half; while coining 

 back in the dark, with stormy gusts of wind and rain, we spent about two 

 hours in crossing. The two rafts, attached by a rotan-tie at each end, worked 

 against each other as the waves splashed up between. 



The summit of Koebre is a bare, open, lichen-covered plateau, of which 

 the wind-swept character is revealed in the shrnbs, either prostrate and 

 spreading on the ground or of clipped, erect, and compact habit. A few 

 single trees which have survived the fires to which the open character of 

 this summit is due, dot the surface, while in gullies and depressions small 

 trees are crowded into shrubberies surrounded by a ring of burnt wood. 



It was amazing to see solitary grotesque Myrmedomas, over a metre high, 

 also recorded by van Ooster/ee (17, 1008) plants of such size, to say nothing 

 of the terrestrial habit, being quite unknown to me (PL 3. fig. G). The 

 same may be said of an extraordinary Hydnophytutn^ just like a collection of 

 pipes standing upright on the ground, each pipe representing a hollow stem, 

 about one dm. across, bearing flowering branches round the rim. A couple 

 of small isolated trees of Dacrydium novo-gumeense bore an abundance of 

 small red cones. 



From the summit there is a splendid view over the smaller, or " Man " 

 (<$ ), lake, beautiful in outline, with much cultivation round its shores, of 

 which the upper slopes are much more densely wooded and the lower more 

 thickly inhabited than the "Woman" (?), especially towards the south, 



1 Cloth. 



