246 



especially in moderately shadowed localities, under hedges, 

 on road-sides, in native villages, in coffee-plantations. It is 

 reproduced exclusively by fruits which lack a pappus and 

 are curiously dimorphous, those of the outer flowers being 

 surrounded by a broad, deeply serrate wing, those of the 

 disk-flowers being much narrower and provided with 2 4 

 spreading apical awns. The fruits are spread by water 

 flowing down and by animals to whose coat they attach 

 themselves. 



No littoral plant. Collected as appears from the Dutch 

 text in the Casuarina equisetifoiia belt near the sea. 



67 (13). Erechthites hieracifolia Raf. See p. 52, under No. 4. 

 jVo littoral plant. Habitat not mentioned. 



The above list of 67 species collected on the main island contains 

 under the head ,,Plants observed by me (i.e. Mr. Docters van 

 Leeuwen) on or near the beach" very heterogeneous elements: 

 plants of sandy beaches, mangrove-plants, simple halophytes and 

 plants of salt-free localities in the interior (which are often found 

 quite close to the sea). The latter plants belong to divers oecolog- 

 ical groups, such as kremnophytes, weeds of fields and road-sides, 

 common jungle-plants and meso-hygrophytes. Mr. Docters van 

 Leeuwen distinguishes only between ,,true beach plants" or ,,genuine 

 ,,littoral plants" and ,,plants that should not be considered to belong 

 ,,to the beach flora proper". The term ,,true beach plant" or ,,genuine 

 ,,littoral plant" should, in my opinion, be restricted to plants which 

 occur exclusively, or almost so, on the beach, i.e. on the narrow 

 zone immediately behind the flood-mark. Beach-plants should not be 

 confounded with mangrove-plants nor with simple halophytes, which 

 may grow on the beach but occur also far behind it and even quite 

 in the interior. But Mr. Docters van Leeuwen evidently com- 

 prises under ,,true beach plants" all halophytes either growing usually 

 on the beach or not. As a true beach plant he even records in the 

 English text No. 4 (85), Stenochlaena palustris Bedd., which is neither 

 a halophyte nor a real beach plant (though it may be found in the 

 Zia/T/ngton/a-formation) and No. 63 (14), Pluchea indica Less., a shrub 

 of heavy soils either saline (and very often so) or not. Though most 

 frequent in the coastal plains the latter species may be also found 

 far in the interior but it never occurs on the beach proper. Of many 

 species the habitat has not been given; it is not even said whether 



