30 ON THE DISPERSAL OF SEEDS BY MAMMALS. 



ScirpodendfOJt. This aberrant Sedge has its inconspi- 

 cuous fruits always nibbled by some small mammal. 



Adhesive Fruits Distributed by Mammals 



In the Malay Peninsula there are fewer plants furnished 

 with means of adhesion to fur or feather than in many parts of 

 the world. This is owing to the limited amount of open coun- 

 try, the greater part of this region being covered thickly with 

 a dense jungle of lofty trees. For the greater part of the 

 adhesive fruits belong to herbs, or half-shrubby plants living 

 in flat, open country. Of such as we do find here, a number 

 are aliens more or less accidentally introduced, such are the 

 white Plumbago {Plumbago zeylanica, L.), Urena lobata, the 

 stnsitiwQ ^\dLV\\. {Mimosa ptcdica, h.), Trmmfetta, and Paspa- 

 lum conjiigatum, L. Nearly all of these are carried about by 

 man or domestic animals. 



In Plumbago zeyla?tica, L. the calyx which encloses the cap- 

 sule is provided with sticky hairs, which readily adhere to 

 clothes or fur. The plant is common in villages, but I never 

 saw it at any distance from cultivation. In Trmmfetta, a 

 roadside weed, the capsule is provided with hooks. 



Paspaliim conjugatum is a common grass, the very small 

 spikelets of which are rounded and edged with short, bristly 

 hairs. They are very easily detached from the rachis on 

 which they are arranged, and attach themselves readily especial- 

 ly in wet weather to clothes, &c. This grass has travelled 

 further than any of the introduced weeds throughout the Penin- 

 sula. I have found it growing in crevices of rocks in theTahan 

 River as far as I have been, and on Padang Batu on Mount 

 Ophir, I saw a plant growing at the stream close to the camp- 

 ing ground, at the spot where the natives who visit the spot 

 are accustomed to bathe and wash their clothes. A very long 

 way from the flat country where it is abundant. 



In Chrysopogon aciculatiis, Beauv., commonly known here as 

 love-grass, the spikelets are arranged in an erect panicle with 

 slender, wiry branches each of which bears one fertile spikelet 

 the base and one or more barren spikelets. From the 



