IN CEYLON. 
425 
Mesua ferrea, and others which, if one can forget the more 
oppressive atmosphere, strongly suggest the forests of wetter 
and cooler zones. In such dry forests one may meet with a 
few more species which habitually pass through a leafless 
stage, than in the damp districts. During the dry season from 
May to September, the partially or completely leafless trees 
of Yitex altissima, Berrya Ammonilla, Cassia fistula, Cratæva 
Roxburgh!!, and Spondias mangifera, suggest that the local 
vegetation is influenced more by climate than in other 
districts of Ceylon. But wherever one goes in Ceylon, 
whether along the sea coast, to the north or south of the 
island, on the coral islands in the Gulf of Mannar, or into 
the forests in the wet or arid zones, there are signs of the 
independence of defoliation with respect to external factors 
to be observed. Under the same climatic environment trees 
are to be seen in all stages, from the fall of the first leaf to 
the leafless branches and the flush of fresh green leaves, the 
former suggesting winter and the latter the spring time in a 
temperate zone. In most of the districts the leafless condi¬ 
tion when at its maximum is always less uniform than what 
one is accustomed to meet with in any zone other than a 
tropical one. 
As Holtermann* states, there are no forests in Ceylon the 
trees of which lose their leaves periodically for a long time ; 
the majority are evergreen, and the manner in which the 
deciduous species drop their leaves varies considerably. If 
one confines his studies to the trees growing in or near the 
Botanic Garden, Peradeniya, he may be misled as to the 
probable character of the forest trees, as at Peradeniya there 
are more deciduous species introduced from other countries 
than in the whole of the Ceylon flora. 
Frequency of Foliar Activity . 
It is not so much in the number of species which become 
leafless as in the manner in which defoliation and foliar 
* Dr. Carl Holtermann : Anatomisch-physiologische Untersuchungen 
in den Tropen ; Berlin, 1903. 
