376 GEOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 



one, which is merely produced by local conditions of soil, 

 and thus Junghuhn, by his ascent of this mountain, has 

 thrown some light upon an anomaly which has hitherto 

 been almost inexplicable, viz. that the tree-limit in Java 

 is so much lower than in the Himalaya, and that in 

 general subalpine Ericaceous shrubs, with the northern 

 alpine genera (e. g. Ranunculus, Viola, and Gentiand), 

 descend there to an equally low level of 7 8000'. Yet 

 the difficulty in explaining these deviations is not, in fact, 

 completely removed by these observations, but merely 

 confined within narrower limits ; for although Pang-Ge- 

 rango teaches us, that at 9200' the most luxuriant woods 

 still imitate the crooked stems of the mountain -pine, yet 

 we find in India forests of tall fir trees at a level of more 

 than 10,000'. 



At the foot of the mud-volcano Galungung, Junghuhn 

 describes the occurrence of almost impenetrable rush- 

 formations, the marshy surface being thickly covered with 

 SaccJiarmn Klaga, 15' in height, around which an Equi- 

 setum and Epidendra are coiled. Above these marshes, 

 on the slope of the mountain, the forest of Urticeae and 

 Magnoliaceae commences, including all those accessory 

 components which render the attempt to describe tropical 

 forests apparently impossible, even although we should 

 not aspire to represent its copiousness by words and 

 expressions, but merely to seize the distinctions in its 

 mode of development and the conditions under which it 

 occurs. 



Just as the Rosamala-forests in the west of Java deter- 

 mine the physiognomy of the mountains, when covered 

 by them, so in the eastern portion of the island do the 

 forest-regions of Casuarina equisetifolia, which, however, 

 are not met with below a level of 4000'; hence, although 

 they ascend higher than other forms of trees, they are 

 confined to the more limited space on individual elevated 

 points. No trace of Casuarinte is found west of Merapi, 

 a mountain from which they are almost extirpated, whilst 

 they do not appear to be absent from any of the moun- 

 tain-tops which ascend on the east of it (p. 372). 



