ON THE DISPERSAL OF SEEDS BY MAMMALS. 3 1 



bottom of the lowest spikelet projects a spur covered 

 except on one side with stiff yellow hairs pointing upwards. 

 When the fruit is ripe this fertile spikelet readily breaks off 

 and adheres by its spur to cloth or the fur of an animal and is 

 borne away. This grass is very abundant in dry open coun- 

 try, and forms an extensive turf in many places. 



Besides these grasses, there are three species which inhabit 

 the dense jungles, and excepting bamboos, are the only jungle 

 grasses here. They are Leptaspis tirceolata, Br., Lophatherum 

 graciky Brngn., and CeiitotJieca lappacea^ Beau v. 



The first of these has a loose spreading panicle bearing 

 curious oval spikelets, of which one of the outer glumes is, in 

 the female flower, swollen up and entirely encloses the fruit, 

 this outer glume is covered thickly with short but strong, 

 abruptly hooked hairs, by which it clings very tightly to a 

 passing animal. So adhesive is it that in brushing past it it 

 often happens that the whole inflorescence is torn off. 



In an allied species L. cochleata, a native of Ceylon, the 

 spikelet is smaller and kidney-shaped with five ridges and 

 covered in like manner with very short hooked hairs. 



In Lophatherum the spikelets have several glumes, of which 

 the eight terminal ones bear awns covered thickly with minute 

 processes pointing downwards. When the fruit is ripe the awns 

 become hooked by drying, and by this and the minute pro- 

 cesses the spikelets can attach themselves to any animal. 



In Centotheca not only are the branches of the panicle pro- 

 vided with short processes (pointing upward in this plant) 

 but from each side of one of the upper glumes which encloses 

 the fruit, project a double row of long, white processes by 

 which means the whole panicle readily adheres to the clothes 

 of man or to the fur of an animal. These two latter grasses 

 are especially common along paths and animal tracks in the 

 thickest jungles, but where it is too thick for animals to go 

 easily one does not find them. 



It is probable that more plants will be found which possess 

 these adhesive fruits in the Malay Peninsula, but these will, I 

 think, be chiefly introduced weeds. In any case the number 

 will be very much smaller than that of plants dispersed in any 



