16 THE FLORA OF LOWER SIAM. 



flat plains largely occupied by ricefields and quite unlike the 

 country in the South of the Peninsula. The climate too 

 alters considerably here, the dry season being much more 

 marked. During this season many of the trees become 

 leafless, and>,many herbaceous plants wither up and disappear 

 above ground, specially on the limestone rocks. At the time 

 of my visit to Alor Star the ricefields were very dry and 

 many plants quite dried up, so that these fields had the 

 appearance of the English grass fields in late autumn. There 

 had been apparently more rain at Perlis and Setul and many 

 of the ricefield herbs which at Alor Star were withered up, 

 were still in flower there. 



With these changes of soil and climate I found a great 

 change with the flora, the absence of very many common 

 Malay genera and species, and a great increase in Indian 

 and Burmese plants. 



Very striking, too, was the great preponderance of Xero- 

 phytic plants, and a corresponding diminution in strictly 

 hygrophytic species. The conspicuous spiny and thorny 

 character of a large proportion of species shewed how strictly 

 xerophytic the flora had become. In order to get a clear idea 

 of this distinct flora, I propose to record in the list of the 

 plants all the species I can find noted or collected in the 

 whole of this district, including the adjacent islands of the 

 Lankawi Archipelago. 



The East Coast of the Peninsula as far as this has 

 not yet been botanically explored, so that it is not certain 

 where the boundary line between the two floras lies on this 

 side. 4l Such plants as 1 have obtained from Kelantan and 

 Legeh are nearly all typical Malayan, so that the boundary 

 line is somewhere North of that State. 



Collectors. — The earliest Collector in the region included 

 in our area was Koenig in his travels to Bangkok and back from 

 India (Journal of the Boyal Asiatic Society, xxvi, p. 1G5). 

 On the return voyage March 16, 1779, he arrived at the 

 Lankawi islands, and there northwards to " Pulu Salang," 

 or Junkseylon as it was called in those days. He collected 



Jour. Straits Branch 



