TKOPICAL FLORAS 51 



on tlie Mattang inuunUiiii in Sarawak, three straight trees, 

 each about 9 inches diameter, were found growing at such a 

 distance and position as to be exactly suitable for three of 

 the corner posts of the house in which he afterwards resided 

 during some months' collecting there. When the tops were 

 cut off, and he could examine them, he found them to be- 

 long to three different genera of two natural orders, and also 

 that they were all new species probably peculiar to Borneo. 

 Another illustration he gives of the great productiveness of 

 these forests in species of trees is, that in the two months 

 he lived in his forest home he obtained fifty species of 

 Dipterocarps (an order in which he was much, interested) in 

 two months' collecting and within a mile of his house. This 

 order of plants consists entirely of large forest-trees, and is 

 especially characteristic of the true Malay flora from the 

 Peninsula to Java, Celebes, and the Philippines. It is prob- 

 ably at its maximum in Borneo, as Professor Beccari gives 

 it as the twelfth in the sequence of orders as regards number 

 of species: (1) Rubiace^e; (2) Orchidace^, 200 species; (3) 

 Euphorbiaceee ; (4) Leguminosse; (5) Anonace^e; (6) Melas- 

 tomacene; (7) Palmse, 130 species; (8) Urticacese; (9) 

 Myrtacese; (10) Aracese; (11) Guttiferse; (12) Diptero- 

 carpe?e, 60 species. This list, it must be remembered, refers 

 to the '^ primeval forests " alone, taking no account of the 

 widespread tropical flora found in old clearings and in the 

 vicinity of towns and villages. 



Before leaving the Asiatic continent I must say a few words 

 as to the figures given in the table for the plants of Indo- 

 China, comprising the whole territory between Buraia aud 

 China, which has been at least as w^ell explored by French 

 botanists as have Burma and the Malay Peninsula by our- 

 selves. Having been unable to obtain any statistical infor- 

 mation on this area from English botanists, I applied to ]\r. 

 Gagnepain, of the botanical department of the ^N^atural His- 

 tory Museum of Paris, who hns kindly furnished me witli 

 the following facts. They have at the Museum very large 



