CH. IX JOUBNEY THBOUGH MINAHAS8A 237 



A square mile of forest in Celebes is as a patch of turf 

 in England, composed of many different genera and species 

 belonging to widely different natural orders (11). The 

 reason of this may be that the soil and climate of the 

 mountain slopes in the tropics are particularly and equally 

 favourable for the growth of forest trees ; and as the 

 struggle for existence in a given area is known to be more 

 severe between plants of the same species than between 

 plants which are not, the forests have in the course of time, 

 by a process of natural selection, assumed their present 

 heterogeneous aspect. It is only in areas where it requires 

 some special or extraordinary power of the trees to resist 

 unfavourable conditions that we find one species or genus 

 flourishing in large numbers in the same forest. Thus but 

 few trees in the world possess the power of resisting the 

 action of salt water ; and consequently we find that the 

 mangrove forests are composed of, comparatively speaking, 

 few species, and in that respect offer a striking contrast to 

 the neighbouring forests on the dry land. It is, perhaps, 

 some exceptional power possessed by the pines, firs, oaks, 

 &c., to resist cold or heavy winds or to subsist on a poor 

 soil which has caused the paucity of species in the forests 

 of cold and temperate climes. 



It is a curious thing that at present our knowledge of 

 the botany of North Celebes is very scanty. The orni- 

 thology and entomology of Minahassa have been very 

 thoroughly investigated by several competent naturalists ; 

 but since the time of Eeinwardt scarcely a single botanist 

 has devoted himself to a study of the plants of this district. 

 Considering the unexampled facilities the colony offers for 

 quiet and uninterrupted work in natural history, and the 

 many forest-clad mountain peaks which probably support 

 a flora of exceptional interest, it is to be hoped that this 

 hiatus in our knowledge will soon be filled up. 



