A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants 



and Ferns Found Growing Wild 



in the Island of Penang. 



COMPILED BY 



C. CURTIS, F.L.s. 



Assistant Superintendent of Forests, Penang. 



r 



;e Island of Penang, situated in Lat, 5" 24' North, 

 and Long-. 100° 20' East, has an area of about 106 

 square miles. 



The greater portion is hilly, the highest point being 

 West Hill, about the centre of the Island, which is 2,750 feet 

 above sea level. Government Hill, on which many of the 

 plants recorded have been collected, is about 250 feet lower. 

 From an altitude of about 1,000 feet, and in some places much 

 lower, these hills are covered with a varied and luxuriant 

 vegetation, conspicuous among the larger trees being Diptero- 

 carps, AgatJiis lorantJiifolius , Dacrydiiun elattun, Oaks, 

 Eugenias, &c. Underneath these is found a heterogeneous 

 mass consisting of seedlings of the larger trees intermixed 

 with a variety of shrubs and smaller trees, all struggling for 

 supremacy. 



Deep ravines are numerous, the bottoms of which are a 

 mass of more or less rounded granite boulders piled one on 

 top of the other in great confusion, so that to cross from one 

 side to the other is often a matter of difficulty. In many of 

 these ravines, up to 1,500-2,000 feet, there are small but per- 

 manent streams of water that can only be detected by the 



