8 
42. In Ceylon, while travelling to Britain on leave, Mr. Sinclair 
ascended to the summit of Pidurutalagala, 8,290 ft. From about 4,000 ft. to 
the top the vegetation is dwarf scrub and at the top Osbeckia buxifolia, a 
melastomaceous shrub with attractive red flowers, Helichrysum buddleoides, 
an everlasting with yellow blooms, Disporum leschenaultianum, a white 
flowered lily-like plant and Ranunculus wallichianus were seen. Just over half 
way up the mountain is a sphagnum bog with Lycopodium carolinianum and 
a rare everlasting A nap balls thwaitsii. Symplocos cordifolia was seen slightly 
lower down. A visit was also paid to Hakgala Botanic Gardens some eight 
miles away. 
43. The expeditions to Kerilla Estate, Sungei Mai Estate, Chemara 
Research Station, and the Endau Development Project were undertaken in 
continuation of the work recorded in previous annual reports of sampling the 
vanishing vegetation. In these four widely spaced areas (north, east, centre 
and south of the Malay Peninsula) forest in the process of being felled for 
cultivation gave a convenient opportunity of collecting from the fallen forest 
canopy. The work at Kerilla Estate yielded at least three new records for 
Kelantan. 
44. Similarly the visits to the Kuala Sedili New Road afforded an un- 
usual chance of collecting in fresh water swamp forest, not the easiest kind of 
terrain in which to work. The road trace, cut through some five miles of swamp 
progressed at the rate of a chain or two per day, hampered by the lack of 
anything more substantial than sand to build up the roadway above water 
level and by every rainstorm that turned it into a morass. Tree specimens, 
epiphites and parasites were taken as bulldozers knocked the trees down. The 
road construction work was zealously watched for some three months by 
tiger, elephants and wild pig who left their pug marks each night in the freshly 
laid sand, and by day by gentle cooing wah-wahs and raucously protesting 
enggang (hornbills). Innumerable birds, lizards and small mammals could be 
seen which normally one never or seldom comes across. A portion of the area 
merits serious consideration for protection as a nature reserve. 
45. Further north near to Mersing the coastal area has examples of 
raised beaches identified by the shells of living marine molluscs and one might 
expect the extensive sand lying under a foot of peat all along this road trace 
to have been of similar recent marine origin, but no sea-shells were observed. 
One must assume then that this area is a river alluvium. 
46. Miss Chang’s visit to the Kuala Sedili road trace proved profitable 
in the collection of forty different species of lignicolous Polyporaceae and 
Agaricaceae. The abundance of dead timber of trees knocked down in the 
road construction and the dampness of the habitat supplied suitable conditions 
for fungal growth. 
47. The work at Layang-layang revealed two plants of interest. The 
land is on Rengam Series soils and carried good primary forest of which 800 
acres was being felled for planting oil palm. The Botany Department of the 
University of Malaya had marked out quadrats for ecological analysis in the 
course of which it was found that in parts of the forest the dominant tree was 
Kostermansia malayana Soegeng, a close relative of the durian and a hitherto 
undescribed genus and species. Two seedlings have now been established at 
the Botanic Gardens. The other plant of interest was a twining Gleichenia. 
This genus is almost entirely sprawling and scandent. This record of a twining 
habit is the first for Malaya and has only once been recorded elsewhere in the 
