226 Remarks on the Flora of Ceylon. 



similar to that of the coast extends inland to the foot of the great 

 mountain chain ; but from thence upwards a very great change is 

 found to take place in it, and almost every thousand feet of elevation 

 shows a vegetation which, though merging into those immediately 

 above and beneath it, offers species which do not range beyond it. 

 It is at an elevation of from 2,000 to 8,000 feet that the greater 

 part of the species of plants peculiar to Ceylon are to be found ; but 

 most of these belong to forms, that is to natural orders or genera, 

 which form part of the vegetation of neighbouring countries, such as 

 the Neilgherry mountains in the peninsula of India, the Himalaya 

 mountains, the high lands of Malacca and of the eastern islands, 

 but more particularly Java, and I have lately met with a few species 

 which indicate an affinity with the continent of Africa. 



I shall now offer a few remarks on the nature of the vegetation 

 which characterizes the different botanical regions of the Island. 

 The truly littoral plants of all countries offer a greater number of 

 identical species in widely separated localities of the same parallels 

 than those of any other, and this, indeed, was to be expected from 

 the fact that the ocean forms a ready medium for their transmission 

 from one country to another by means of tides, winds, and currents, 

 while at the same time their seeds, unlike those of most other plants, 

 are not injured by immersion in salt water. Most of the shrubs 

 which inhabit the muddy shores of the sea and of the salt lagoons 

 which are so numerous towards the north of the Island, and which 

 are known by the name of Mangroves, belong to that natural order 

 of plants which botanists call Rhizophorece, a tribe which is strictly 

 intertropical. My researches have already yielded me about half a 

 dozen species, all of which I find are common to Ceylon, the shores 

 of the continent of India, and of those of the Eastern islands ; and 

 the same I find to be the case with a few other shrubs belonging to 

 other tribes, such as JEgiceras fragrans, which extends even to the 

 shores of Australia, Epithinia Malay ana, Pemphis acidula, Bilivaria 

 ilicifolia, Lumnitzera racemosa, Thespesia populnea (the tulip tree 

 of Ceylon), and Paritium tiliaceum, the last having a far more 

 extensive geographical range than any of the others, as I possess 

 specimens in my herbarium from the shores of the West Indies, 

 Brazil, and the Sandwich Islands, besides from various parts of India, 

 The cocoanut tree, which gives so marked a feature to the West 



