279 



is certain that he has never instituted such close and protracted 

 investigations over the whole of the island as are required for 

 warranting the conclusion that really the whole flora (including sub- 

 terranean organs and buried seeds and spores) was annihilated. To 

 my knowledge the presence in 1906 of a big Cyc<js-plant on the 

 beach was never yet cited by a serious scientist as an argument 

 against the destruction of the former flora and never will be, because 

 we know that the beach on the south-eastern side of the island has 

 been formed by or after the eruption, the old beach having been 

 buried by a very thick layer of ashes and pumice. 



$ 2. There remains the possibility that seeds or rhizomes of plants that grew on 

 Krakatao before the eruption should have been preserved but this would only 

 have created a possibility of the development of plants that can grow on bare 

 slopes. Moreover the first pioneer plants mentioned by Treub were such 

 whose seeds can be easily distributed by wind or sea-currents, neither does 

 one as yet find genuine forest-plants mentioned in Penzig's article- It is 

 difficult to assume that these forest-plants on Krakatao should have been 

 spared as seeds or rootstocks for so many years and should have been able 

 to sprout again when circumstances so long afterwards favoured their growth. 

 For this proofs would have to be adduced. 



In Chapter III I mentioned already that Verbeek, two months 

 after the eruption, found the original soil lying bare in the eroded 

 ravines. It is a well-known fact that very many seeds and rhizomes 

 can stand being buried for a very much longer time than two months, 

 even for many years '). Hence it is not at all difficult to assume that 

 plants or seeds of the original flora may have been spared, though 

 on this point nothing definite is known. We know also that Treub 

 and Penzig investigated only a small part of the north-western side 

 of the island and not the ravines on the south and south-eastern 

 side. Hence from their finds no conclusion may be drawn as to the 

 vegetation of these ravines. Moreover Treub saw from a long dist- 

 ance rather large plants growing near the top of the mountain. 

 Nobody knows which these plants were. All these facts were already 

 discussed in Chapter III to which I refer. I only repeat that not a 

 single proof has been given for a sterilisation of the soil. 



4. The flora of Sebesy, where the destruction has not been so thorough as on 

 Krakatao, as witness e.g- the far thinner layer of ashes that settled on this 

 island, and where Mr. Docters van Leeuwen found a very differently 

 composed flora (more nearly resembling what is to be found on similar 



J ) See A. |. Ewart, On the Longevity of Seeds in Proceedings Royal Society 

 Victoria XXI (1908). 



