xx] STENOPHYLLISM 



liked to have had more positive proof, and had even planned a great 

 fishing battue, but the scarcity of my supplies and of the more 

 necessary commodities obliged me to shorten my stay. Besides, 

 I could not possibly have preserved specimens of fish. 1 



On the morning of the twenty-fifth of September I took leave 

 of Sematto and Senahan, the two courteous Orang Tuas of Skapan, 

 and got into the big and comfortable boat they had so kindly 

 procured for me, which, manned by twenty-four paddlers, seemed 

 literally to fly over the water. The landscape was fine, varied 

 by hills and low mountains, the highest of which, Gunong Baloi, 

 rises just behind Skapan, and may possibly have an elevation of 

 some 2,000 feet. 



Below Skapan the Baloi widens considerably, and divides to 

 form several islands, which are covered by water during floods, 

 though now clothed with the densest vegetation. The plants 

 growing on them belong to very different families, but all have 

 very flexible stems and branches and narrow leaves, which can 

 easily bend to the current without breaking when the waters rise 

 and cover them. Such plants are represented by the willow kind 

 with us, which grow on river banks, and are liable to be flooded 

 at certain seasons. 



The action of running water, according to my views, repre- 

 sents a natural force which has brought about a special adaptation 

 in the leaves of many fluviatile plants. To the modification thus 

 produced the term " Stenophyllism," or " narrow-leavedness," 

 may be conveniently applied. This special adaptation, however, 

 is not only caused by running water. Constant and steady air- 

 currents may, I think, have promoted the stenophyllism which 

 occurs in a large number of trees and shrubs growing on the banks 

 of the Rejang and neighbouring rivers, as well as in other countries, 

 but which I did not notice along the Sarawak, the Sambas district 

 rivers, or the lakes of the Kapuas. Not a few of the plants with 

 narrow leaves which I met on the Rejang and Tubao are endemic 

 species, and it might even be said that they still occupy the 

 localities where they were plasmated (Fig. 51). This would prove 

 that no geological perturbations have occurred in this region at 

 least from middle Tertiary times to the present day ; for if 

 any such changes had taken place it would be difficult to explain 

 how perfectly local species could have become modified in accord- 

 ance with stimuli equally limited to these rivers. 



In the forest bordering this part of the Rejang river the 

 camphor tree (Dryobalanops) which I had found on the Gunong 

 Sedaha was common. I wished to procure a few living specimens 



1 I have since learnt that both sharks and rays enter the rivers of Southern 

 Asia and are found hundreds of miles from the sea, and the same thing 

 has been observed in the great rivers of tropical South America. 



305 X 



