THE FLORA OF LOWER SIAM. 1 9 



Of No. 1, I may say that the herbaceous plants and sunlight 

 plants, shrubs and small trees thrive, and here is the greatest 

 struggle for existence. 



Its subdivisions can be characterised by its variety of 

 plants. 



a. Orchards and uncultivated lands round houses and 

 villages. Fruit trees abound, Orange, Lime, Pumelo, Mango, 

 Banana, Coconut, Betelnut, Sugar palms, etc. The under 

 vegetation is rich, many phanerogams and medical plants, and 

 certain weeds etc. 



b. Paddy fields and their outskirts, many grasses, water- 

 weeds, Scrophulariaceae etc. 



c. Old Paddy fields now used as pasture afford Mal- 

 vaceae, small trees, etc. 



d. Bamboo jungle ; some old dry paddy fields, some- 

 times from cutting down of jungle, sometimes from " burning 

 jungle. Trees here and there, and although there is a ground 

 vegetation poor and few species. 



e. Jungle cut down and kept cut down, rather a 

 peculiar lot of convolvuli, grasses, thorny weeds coming up 

 with other shrubs (many Euphorbiaceae.) 



2. Natural vegetation. 



a. That between the high water mark and the edge of 

 the jungle. Creeping plants, convolvulus, Leguminosae, grasses 

 screwpines (P and anus) and other shrubby trees. 



b. Mangrove swamps. 



c. Banks and Islands of the streams. 



d. The jungle-forest of the plains. 



e. Hill forest of a shrubby stunted nature but no ground 

 carpeting vegetation." 



(The limestone hill flora he had not examined when he 

 wrote this. It would form another class.) 



" These different divisions I look upon as containing 

 vegetation of different eras. The oldest vegetation is that of 

 the hills, the sea beach and mangrove follow, then those of the 

 stream and plain. That of the stream I look upon as most 

 important. It is the earliest and only open vegetation in 



R. A. Soc, No. 59. I9H. 



