4 
Indian Forest Records. 
[Vol. III. 
CHAPTER II. 
Chief Types of Teak Forest. 
1. General. 
A description of all the various types of teak forest in Burma is 
Reason for indicating object in referring to the subject here is to 
iiof tvnes ol forest. J J „ 
teak forest which constitute the great bulk of the areas under working- 
plans. 
For working-plans purposes the distinction between “ moist ” and 
‘ 4 dry 5 ’ teak forest is an important one, in that the exploitable size in 
the latter is frequently less than it is in the former. It is therefore justi¬ 
fiable here to make some allusion to the main types of teak forest. 
The classification of the teak forests of Burma into their main types 
and sub-types has always proved a difficult 
matter. Brandis in his Report on the Atta- 
Classification difficult. 
ran Forests* divided the teak localities in the upper mixed forests 
of Lower Burma alone into no fewer than six groups, to which we 
might add several more if we included the various sub-types met 
with in Upper Burma. Kurz in his Preliminary Report on the Forest 
Vegetation of Pegu,f draws attention to the wide distribution of teak 
over the various classes of deciduous forests in the following sentence . 
‘ 4 Teak and pyinkado (Xylia dolabriformis) are of very little value in the 
determination of various kinds of forests, for the simple reason that they 
occur in all sorts of leaf-shedding forests. In fact they are really missed 
only in the littoral and swamp forests.’ 
We are concerned here mainly with those teak forests which have 
been examined in connection with working- 
plans operations, but as they represent a 
considerable proportion of the most valuable teak forests in Burma 
they may be taken as fairly typical. There is little difficulty in divid¬ 
ing these forests into two main classes :— 
I. Upper mixed.—(Vide Plate II.) 
II. Lower mixed.—(Vide Plate III.) 
* Brandis, Report on the Attaran Forests, 1860, p. 51. 
f Kurz, Preliminary Report on the Forest and other Vegetation of Pegu, 1875, 
p. 63. 
