6S A CATALOGUE OF THE FLOWERING PLANTS AND FERNS, &C. 



sound of their rippling several feet below the surface, where 

 they have found a passage among the boulders. 



It is in such places, where the direct rays of the sun never 

 penetrate, growing on these boulders, that the great wealth 

 of Ferns, Aroids, Medinillas, Rhododendron, Cypripedmin 

 barbatiini^ Didymocarps, Sonerilas, small Orchids and such 

 like things are most abundant. 



The soil of all the hills is very similar, being of a reddish 

 or yellow colour, and composed mainly of partially decomposed 

 granite. In the lower lands where the soil is of a different 

 nature, and where one might naturally expect to find a some- 

 what different flora, forests have long disappeared, and with 

 them probably many plants that were once common. When 

 forests have once been felled and burnt off there is an end to 

 the most interesting vegetation, at least for a long period. 

 Even though no cultivation be attempted most of the trees, 

 shrubs, etc., that spring up on the cleared land are different from 

 the original ones, and of as little value commercially as they are 

 botanically uninteresting. Among the first to assume posses- 

 sion, often to the exclusion of every other plant, is the "lalang" 

 {Imperata ariuidinacea), and in places where this is absent 

 "resam" {GleicJietiia sps.). Of woody plants, Rhodouiyrtus 

 tojnentosa, Eurya acuvmiata, Treiiia ambomense, and Adiiiaii- 

 dra dumosa are among the first and most numerous in a new 

 clearing. The present site of the Botanic Garden had at 

 some time in the earlier days of the Settlement of Penang been 

 planted with cloves and nutmegs, but at the time the forma- 

 tion of a garden was commenced these trees had long been 

 dead and the land was covered with secondary jungle, in many 

 places as dense as that of the surrounding hills that apparently 

 have never been cleared. Notwithstanding the fact that these 

 hills rise abruptly on three sides and are covered to the sum- 

 mit with large Dipterocarps, Sterculias, Eugenias, Swintonia, 

 etc., so that in a good seed-bearing season thousands of seeds 

 must be washed down into the valley by the heavy rains, 

 there was scarcely any trace of these re-occupying their 

 original position on the laiid that had been cultivated. 



What actually occupied the land was thousands o{ Euyra 



