TO LOWER SIAM. 29 



but to get at the flowers one would have to fell the tree, a 

 matter of some difficulty. Like all species of the genus it only 

 produces its flowers when it is full grown at the apex of the 

 tree, and after developing its fruits the whole plant dies. 

 Three species of the genus occur in India and Ceylon, one in 

 the Andamans and one in Borneo. The genus in quite absent 

 from the Peninsula south of Alor Sta. 



The weather was bright and extremely hot and many 

 of the rice field-plants parched up and dry. These flat 

 dry pastures in the bright sunlight with the blue hills in the 

 distance, are a great change from the forest clad country of 

 the south of the Peninsula and with the songs of birds, the dis- 

 tant crowing of cocks, and lowing of cattle reminded one more 

 of an autumn scene in England after the harvest is over. The 

 distant hills except Gunong Jerai and Gunong Perak which 

 are granite, are of sandstone, and it is no doubt the denudation 

 of this rock that has made the flat plains of Alor Sta. I was 

 told that this sandy plain runs right across from West to East 

 and there is hardly a hill to be crossed in traversing the 

 Peninsula from here. This and the complete change of flora 

 suggests that at no distant date the lower part of the peninsula, 

 south that is of Kedah Peak, was separated by the sea from the 

 land north of this point and I should be inclined to suggest 

 too that at this time both Gunong Perak and Gunong Jerai 

 were islands. No one seems to have visited Gunong Perak, but 

 I am informed it it also of granite like Gunong Jerai. The 

 flora of Gunong Jerai seems to be in certain respects similar 

 to that of Mount Ophir which is also a detached hill standing 

 away from the main chain of the Perak and Selangor ranges, 

 lying in an alluvial plain of apparently no great antiquity. It 

 is quite unlike the flora of this main range. 



The low flat plain country extends really south of Alor 1 

 Sta as all of Province Wellesley is similarly flat, as far as 

 Bukit Mertajam, and Bukit Juru. The flora here is, however, 

 more like that of the alluvial plains further South. Until 

 however, we have some geological data to go on for this part 

 of the Peninsula it would be unsafe to dogmatize but as be- 

 ll. A. Soc, No. 59, 191 1. 



