chap. ix.] IN DO-MALAY ISLANDS. 217 



pitcher plants (Nepenthacese), which are only represented 

 elsewhere by solitary species in Ceylon, Madagascar, the 

 Seychelles, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Those celebrated 

 fruits, the Mangosteen and the Durian, are natives of this 

 region, and will hardly grow out of the Archipelago. The 

 mountain plants of Java have already been alluded to as 

 showing a former connexion with the continent of Asia ; 

 and a still more extraordinary and more ancient connexion 

 with Australia has been indicated by Mr. Low's collections 

 from the summit of Kini-balou, the loftiest mountain in 

 Borneo. 



Plants have much greater facilities for passing across 

 arms of the sea than animals. The lighter seeds are easily 

 carried by the winds, and many of them are specially 

 adapted to be so carried. Others can float a long time 

 unhurt in the water, and are drifted by winds and currents 

 to distant shores. Pigeons, and other fruit-eating birds, are 

 also the means of distributing plants, since the seeds 

 readily germinate after passing through their bodies. It 

 thus happens that plants which grow on shores and low- 

 lands have a wide distribution, and it requires an extensive 

 knowledge of the species of each island to determine the 

 relations of their floras with any approach to accuracy. At 

 present we have no such complete knowledge of the botany 

 of the several islands of the Archipelago ; and it is only by 

 such striking phenomena as the occurrence of northern and 



