summit of Pine Tree Hill, and later on the Jeriau Road and seen elsewhere, 
is apparently spreading and becoming more common in the Fraser’s Hill 
area. 
41. Most of the other collecting done by Mr. Burkill was of marine 
algae. A course of monthly visits was paid to Raffles Light off Singapore 
Island to sample the year-long cycle of growth of Sargassum spp. for testing 
the alginic acid content. The weed is entirely broken off in February leaving 
only the hold-fast and basal 2-3 inches from which the new growth emerges. 
The young stems contain little alginic acid, but the percentage increases to 
about 25 per cent later in the year and stays at this figure. Unfortunately 
this is not a high enough concentration to suggest that local sargassum weed 
could at present be exploited commercially in the face of the more produc- 
tive weed of temperate waters, but it may become so with the greatly 
increasing usage of alginic acid in industry. Alginic acid assays were done 
by the Tropical Products Institute in London to whom thanks are due for 
their help. 
42. An interesting visit was paid to P. Tokong Burong while at 
Mersing to see the vegetation of these rocky islets inhabited by a dense 
colony of seabirds. Sterna s. sumatrana, the black naped tern. The soil is 
sparse and is almost entirely made up of grit and faecal droppings of the 
birds. The only vegetation found was a plentiful tussock cover of Chrysopo- 
gon collinus on the cliffs and upper slopes of the rocks between which the 
birds nest and hatch single eggs, and occasional clumps of Cyperus polysta- 
chyos at the base of the cliffs in the splash zone of the waves. Standing water, 
very rich in faecal nitrogen, was coloured a vivid green by Chlamydomonas. 
The water also contained a xanthophycean. 
43. Mr. Alphonso’s visit to the Langkawi group of islands was made 
possible by the kind cooperation of the Commanding Officer of the Singapore 
Guard Regiment who invited the Gardens to lend a botanical flavour to a 
party of troops undergoing jungle exercises. Major R. Brewer, in command 
of the party, was extremely helpful and cooperative in detailing soldiers 
for assistance whom we hope learnt, as a suitable quid pro quo, something 
of the vegetation, and that the forest was not just “jungle” to be hated and 
avoided but a living entity in which man can be and work. The main object 
of the collecting was to obtain living plants of ferns and orchids for the 
Botanic Gardens nurseries. 
44. The Department is indebted to Mr. Cheang Kok Choy, Superin- 
tendent of the Penang Botanic Gardens, who gave Miss Chang considerable 
assistance on her expeditions to Langkawi and to Kedah Peak. Help was 
also given by Mr. Abdul Kareem Hussain of Balik Pulau, Penang, and 
various ketuas; also the lumbering contractor working on the new road to 
Sik who loaned jeep transport, and the sawmill manager at Kulim who 
loaned labourers and transport. 
45. Miss Chang’s main collections have been of fungi, mostly of the 
group Basidiomycetes. In this group most Boletes and some agarics have 
been found to be mycorrhizal. Information into the specificity of host trees 
should yield invaluably useful information to forest botanists and silvicul- 
turists engaged on problems of afforestation. In Singapore a feeble fructifi- 
cation season occurred in April. There was a more pronounced season in 
January which would normally have occurred in the preceding November 
had the monsoon rains not been delayed. The January season was also 
10 
