The Gesneraceae of the Malay 

 Peninsula. 



By H. N. Ridley. 



There is perhaps no order of plants in the Malay Peninsula 

 which contains so large a percentage of ornamental flowering- 

 species, as that of the Gesneraceae or Cyrtandreea. Few indeed 

 are those which either in foliage or more often in flower do not 

 strike the eye of a botanist in our hill woods. Unfortunately a 

 considerable number are by no means easy of cultivation and 

 among these the most difficult are the small half-shrubby kinds, 

 Didymocarpi and Didissandras which possess the most beautiful 

 flowers of every colour from white to red, blue and yellow. A 

 bank covered with a mass of Didy/uocdrpus quinquevulnera as it 

 may be seen along the Tras route or in the Pahang woods is 

 worth going a long way to see. 



The number of species recorded in this paper as occur- 

 ring in the Malay Peninisula is 121 and it is probable that at 

 least as many more remain uncollected, as several of the genera 

 are remarkably local, so that each mountain ridge may 

 be expected to produce one or more species. In the Flora of 

 British India the number of species recorded from the Malay 

 Peninisula was 22, but at the time that that part of the work 

 was published (1884) almost all that were known were from 

 Penan^, Singapore and Malacca. Since then i have myself col- 

 lected a large number, in Perak, Pahang. Selangor and elsewhere. 

 Mr. Curtis obtained a very large series of new species from the 

 limestone Islands of Lankawi, a very rich district, and I have 

 also seen the collections of Scortechini, Kunstler and Wray from 

 the Perak Hills, loaned to me by Dr. Prain of the Calcutta 

 Gardens. In 1895 I published in the Linnean Society's Journal a 

 paper on Cyrtandraceaa Malayenses (vol. XXXII p. 497) con- 

 taining a list of 12 species, all that were known at the time. 



Jour Straits Branch E. A. Soc, No. 43. 1905. 



