1876.] S. Kurz — A Sketch oftlie Vegetation of the Nicobar Islands. 107 



necessary to enumerate their constituents. They occupy, as already indicated, 

 chiefly the silty dehouchures of the rivers, and are most fully developed 

 in the quiet bays, and more especially along the channel that separates 

 Kamorta from Nankowry. Bhizophora mucronata and JBruguiera mucronata 

 form usually the bulk of these forests on the Nicobars. Owing to the 

 smallness of the rivers, and to the consequent narrowness of river-alluvium, 

 the variety of these forests distinguished by me as ' tidal forests' is not 

 developed, although localities are met with, on the banks raised above tidal 

 mark, which partake of the same character. 



2. Beach Forests. 

 The beach-forests, or dune-forests, as Dr. Junghuhn, in his excellent 

 account of the vegetation of Java, has more appropriately called them, 

 are restricted to the beaches of fine calcareous sand which stretch along 

 the shores where the hills do not interfere. The islands being in a rising 

 condition, the formation of beaches is favoured to a greater degree than at 

 the Andamans and elsewhere, and some of them extend as far as half a mile 

 inwards. They necessarily form narrow, often crescent-shaped strips, and 

 abruptly terminate where the raised coral-reefs commence. The trees here 

 stand apart and are light-loving ones, and of these the cocoa-nut-palm forms 

 the principal constituent, no doubt much encouraged in its dense growth by 

 cultivation. The outskirts of these dunes are usually marked by a few long- 

 creeping plants, such as Ipomoea pes-caprae, Vigna lutea, Ischaemum muti- 

 cum, Thouarea sarmentosa locally on Katehall, Ipomoea littoralis, etc. 

 To these succeed a number of small trees or shrnbs, which appear from the 

 sea like a dense hedge ; these are chiefly the glaucous-looking Scaevola 

 JLoenigii, Pandanus odoratissimus, Toumefortia argentea (especially on the 

 southern group), Paritium tiliaceum, Sophora tomentosa locally, Orinum 

 Asiaticum with a plantain-like trunk up to 3 feet high by nearly a foot in 

 thickness, and others. Then follow Galophyllum inophyllum, Ptemandia 

 peltata, Glochidion calocarpum, Eugenia Jauanica, Sterculia mollis, Premna 

 integrifolia, Erythrina Zndica, Pongamia glabra, Desmodium umbellatum, 

 Macaranga Tanarius, Heritiera littoralis, Gynometra bijuga, Picas retiosa, 

 Thespesia populnea, Peltophorum ferrugineum scantily, Cycas Pumphii, 

 Vitex negundo, Atalantia macrophylla, Claoxylon molle and C longifolium, 

 Afzelia bijuga, Parringtonia speciosa, Odina wodier, Pious hispida, Termi- 

 nalia catappa, Guettarda speciosa, Dracaena linearifolia in abundance, 

 Pxcoecaria Agallocha, Semecarpus heterophyllas, Sarringtonia racemosa, 

 Ochrosia salubris, Gerbera Odallam, Briedelia glauca, and others. The 

 shrubby vegetation consists chiefly of Morinda bracteata, Gallicarpa lon- 

 gifolia, Gordia subcordata, Breynia racemosa, Securinega obocata, Allo- 

 phylus Cobbe, Tabernaemontana Nicobarica, Leea sambmina and, locally, 



