196 Philippine Journal of Science 1917 
refers not to what he considers a typical development of it, 
but to the presence of scattered individuals representing it. 
The plants listed seem to be a heterogeneous collection whose 
different members would not be prominent in the same habitat. 
We have shown that the name “parang” is properly applied 
to a mixture of grass and second-growth trees. In his use of 
this term Gates followed one of Whitford’s earlier papers in 
which the latter in turn followed Vidal. 
Gates described three moist-ground, or marsh, associations 
of grasses and a “back strand association” of Sesbania, all oc- 
curring along the coast, apparently on the deltal fans, or at the 
foot of bluffs. Owing to the rapid erosion on the island such 
plants would necessarily lead a very precarious existence. As 
we found no traces of such vegetation, it seems probable that 
they had been either washed away by water from the lake, or 
destroyed by floods on the deltal plains. The chief plants of 
these associations were found only as widely scattered indi- 
viduals. For example. Gates describes a Sesbania strand asso- 
ciation as occurring in several localities and as rapidly invading 
the Ipomoea pes-caprae association. In 1916-17, we found only 
a single seedling of Sesbania on the island. 
REGIONAL DESCRIPTION 
The discussion of the vegetation that existed on the island 
in 1913 and 1914 is based on Gates’s description and pictures. 
Owing to a lack of exactness in his statements it has been diffi- 
cult, in some cases, to interpret Gates’s account. Thus he says 
(p. 395) : 
By December, 1913, vegetation was quite well established on the northern 
side of the island to an altitude of about 175 meters. If consisted largely 
of grass — entirely dense at low altitudes, * * *. 
What he means when he says “entirely dense” is not evident, 
as Saccharum is the principal grass and in describing the “Sac- 
charum consocies” he says that even at lower elevations the 
growth activity has not “succeeded in obliterating the bunch- 
grass habit and covering the ground.” Saccharum is usually 
about as high as a man and is normally so dense that it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to force a way through it, even for a short 
distance. In January, 1917, the growth of Saccharum in the 
northern part of the island was so open that, except in very 
limited areas, one could readily pass in any direction over the 
whole region and along the shore of the lake without the slightest 
Gates, F. C. Philip. Journ. Sci. 9 (1914) Bot. 391-434. 
