﻿40 S. Kurz — Contrihdions towards a Knowledge. [No. 2, 



growth is for the greater part more regulated by physical and climatal 

 factors, which in connection with moisture, the most powerful element 

 in nature, bring about the greatest changes in vegetation. But still not an 

 inconsiderable number of herbs are found in Burma and elsewhere in India 

 which belong to Unger's class of soil-steady (bodenstaetig) : such are 

 especially many limestone and laterite plants, and, everywhere, the saline 

 ones. The indication of the forests, etc., in which they grow will, however, 

 at once give a more or less reliable key to the soil-requirements ; the forests 

 being more dependent upon the substratum than the herbaceous growth. 



I have purposely selected for the different varieties of Burmese forests 

 general denominations instead of naming them after characteristic trees, 

 as is usually done. The sorts of forests or combinations of forest trees as 

 distinguished by me are, so to say, the exponents of a complex of climatal 

 physical and partially chemical influences which produce everywhere habi- 

 tually and generically identical or representative equivalents. Thus we 

 have sal-forests in India and eng-forests in Burma ; dry forests in Behar 

 and Northern Hindostan and again in the Prome district ; mixed forests 

 in the low Terai lands of the Himalaya and savannah forests in the Bengal 

 Gangetic alluvium as well as in Burma ; and so it is with the tidal forests, 

 hill-forests, etc. 



The distinction between evergreen and deciduous forests must always 

 be the leading one in tropical countries, and such forests differ always most 

 conspicuously in their vegetative components. 



The former are divided into the littoral forests (tidal and mangrove), 

 the result of saline influence ; further into swamp-forests, the product of 

 superabundance of fresh-water and heavy inundations during rains. Then 

 come the tropical forests, which are more regulated by moisture and amount 

 of shade than by substratum, although great differences (not so much habi- 

 tually as specifically) are observable in those that grow on permeable or on 

 half-permeable strata, on silicious sandstones or on metamorphic or permea- 

 ble laterites, the latter rich in purely Malayan types, the former poorest of 

 all (with those growing on limestone in Tenasserim I am not acquainted). 

 The last sort of evergreen forests are the hill-forests, rather confusedly 

 huddled together by me, but sufficiently distinguished for present require- 

 ments. The lower damper ones of these are a modification of the tropical 

 forests below them, while the drier ones consist chiefly of pines, oaks, Eri- 

 cinecB, etc., and pass soon into the temperate forests, which contain a great 

 number of winter-deciduous trees but are not represented in Burma except 

 on a few peaks above 6500-7000 feet elevation. Here the slope and resul- 

 tant amount of light and moisture, and not so much the quality of rock, 

 are the principal regulators, at least so it is on the metamorphic and older 

 formation, while limestone, etc., will form exceptions. Higher up the in- 



