62 ' THE WORLD OF LIFE 



collections of 2)laiits from all parts of tliis territory, collected 

 from 1862 onwards, but great numbers of the species are 

 still undescribed. Only small portions of the Hora have been 

 actually described in works still in process of publication ; but, 

 from his knowledge of this extensive herbarium, he believes 

 that the flora of Indo-China, as actually collected, comprises 

 about 7000 species. 



Flora of the Malay Islands 



The great archipelago (usually termed the Malayan, or 

 ^' Malaisia "), which extends from Sumatra to Xew Guinea, 

 a distance of nearly 4000 miles, and from the Philippines 

 to Timor, more than 1000 miles, comprises an actual land 

 area of 1,175,000 square miles, which is fully equal to that 

 of all tropical Asia, even if we include the lower slopes of 

 the Eastern Himalayas. Tliis great land-area has the advan- 

 tage over the continent of being mainly situated within ten 

 degrees on each side of the equator, and having all its coasts 

 bathed and interpenetrated by the heated waters of the Indian 

 and Pacific Oceans. These conditions have led to its being 

 almost wholly forest-clad, and to its possessing a flora com- 

 parable in luxuriance and beauty with that of the great 

 Amazonian plain, situated almost exactly at its antipodes. 



The western half of this archipelago has undoubtedly 

 been united with the continent at a comparatively recent 

 geological epoch, and this portion of it, both in its animal 

 and vegetable life, is nearly related to that of the Malay 

 Peninsula and Siam ; but the three chief islands, Sumatra, 

 Borneo, and Java, are of such great extent, and have such, 

 differences, both of geological structure and of climate, as 

 to give to each of them a distinct individuality, combined 

 with, in all probability, a Avealth of species fully equal to 

 that of the adjacent continent.^ The remainder of the Archi- 



1 The Director of Kew Gardens informs me that, in 1850, the flora of the ( 

 " Netherlands India," extending from Sumatra to New Guinea but exclud- 

 ing the Philippines, was estimated by the Dutch botanists to possess 0118 



