49 



others, Didiscus has been recorded from Mt. Scrutchley in the south-east, 

 and the Platanthera from the south-west. 



The presence of the other plants must be due to wind-incidence, and they 

 would be derived from natural exposed areas above the tree-level on the 

 mountains of greater altitude to the east and south of the country. 



The cryptogams, again, as is the case on the marsh, are all cosmopolitan. 



This remarkable ridge association of Koebre combines some of the most 

 peculiar elements of what have been considered the Malayan, Polynesian, 

 and Australian floras. 



The plants found there show roughly what the systematic enumeration 

 of the species collected proves in detail, that the flora of the mountains of 

 New Guinea, almost unknown outside the last ten years, must now be 

 considered the axle of a wheel of distribution, of which the spokes alone have 

 so far been familiar to us. This is in agreement with all recent work at 

 similar or greater altitudes. Had that axle, even now barely investigated, 

 been worked out first, we would, as a matter of course, speak of the 

 dominance of Papuan elements in neighbouring floras as the German and 

 Dutch botanists have already rightly suggested. 



SOME PLANT ASSOCIATIONS OF THE N.W. COAST. 

 Dorei Bay. 



The chief plant association of Dorei Bay is that of the " korang " forest 

 clothing the low coral-limestone range which rises immediately behind Mano- 

 koeari to the height of about 500', in a gradual slope from the sea-shore. 



This forest is still in its pristine condition, as all the surface-water drains 

 through the sterile and porous subsoil, to a certain level line, about 200' 

 above the beach, which marks the issue of the small streams representing the 

 drainage of the ridge. This line also limits possible cultivation, as below it 

 the " korang " is covered with sufficient depth of soil, due mostly to the 

 erosive action of thse streams, to allow of necessary but not luxuriant 

 cultivation. 



The old "pisang" 1 plantations of the Alfueros, now run to seed, with 

 secondary jungle upgrowth, abut on to the natural forest at this level, on 

 which both the reservoirs collecting for the water-supply of Manokoeari are 

 sit.u.-ited at different points. 



The peculiarities of this " korang " forest were noted by Forrest in 1750 

 (1, 111), who wrote "there being no underwood it is easy travelling under 

 the lofty trees "; and Dumont d'Urville in 1827 (3, iv. 581) estimated the trees 

 in the forest as 80-200' high, writing of a " sol degage, arbrisseaux clairsemes, 



1 Banana. 



