APPENDIX 



very localised in the thickest parts of the forests of Java, Sumatra, the 

 Philippines and Borneo. They are beyond doubt amongst the most 

 marvellous products of Nature in existence, and I can only compare 

 them to vegetable monsters which undoubtedly afford evolutionists a 

 good deal of material for conjecture. I really cannot understand 

 by what process the progenitor of the Rafflesia can have lost roots, 

 stem and leaves, concentrating all in one gigantic flower, parasitic 

 on a creeper, and devoid of apparent relationship with other 

 families of plants. If it be true that the various forms of living 

 species have always made their appearance by gradual and slight 

 modifications one from the other, where are now the intermediate 

 forms which acted as the connecting link between Rafflesia and the 

 normal plant ? If Rafflesia is now so very different from the other 

 forms of the vegetable world, the transitional types, according to the 

 theory of slow and gradual evolution, ought to have been infinite. It 

 thus appears very extraordinary that none of those extremely numerous 

 intermediate types should have survived. May it not be that the 

 Rafflesia, and a host of other aberrant species, both animals and plants, 

 are examples of the autocreation of organisms (derived from exceptional 

 circumstances of the environment) and suddenly appeared a Vimproviste, 

 as it were, in that primitive epoch daring which organic matter was 

 easily plasmated, so as to adapt itself with facility even to extraordinary 

 conditions of existence ? 



Size, Colour, and Scent of the Forest Flowers. — A considerable number 

 of the trees which form the great Bornean forest have small and insig- 

 nificant flowers, often of a greenish colour. I am not acquainted with 

 any big tree in Borneo producing flowers in any way comparable to those 

 of a common magnolia. The largest flowers of arboreal plants of the 

 first magnitude are perhaps those of the Durio. Amongst trees of the 

 second and third magnitude, flowers of notable dimensions are borne by 

 some species of the following : — Talauma, Dillenia, Gardenia, some 

 Anonacece (Splicer othalamus insignis, for instance, and some Gonio- 

 thalamus). Amongst shrubs, the flowers of Dillenia (Wormia) suffruticosa 

 are perhaps unsurpassed by those of any other plant in Borneo. Large 

 and beautiful flowers are produced by many epiphytes ; I need merely 

 mention those of numerous Orchidece, Fagrcea, Rhododendron, etc. 



Amongst the minor trees and shrubs which are conspicuous in the 

 dense forest on account of their flowers, although not frequent, Plojarium 

 -pulcherrimum, alread}^ alluded to for the singularity of its stem and for 

 its masses of red flowers, which recall those of Nerium oleander, merits 

 the first place, and following come several Ixoras, with their bright 

 bouquets of scarlet flowers, and various species of Saraca. Smaller plants, 

 remarkable less for the dimensions of their flowers than for their brilliant 

 colours and the way they are grouped and rendered conspicuous, are 

 various kinds of Clerodendron, some Mschynanthus, and more especially 

 numerous Zingiberacece (Costus, Alpinia, Amomum, etc.). I can remember 

 only one tree, Musscendopsis Beccariana, Baill., which has large white 

 bracts, analogous to those of the shrub-like Musscenda. The predomi- 

 nating colour of the flowers of the trees, not taking into consideration 

 the more common greenish, is white ; then follows yellow, then red, 



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