THE 
HEW PHYTOhOGIST. 
Vol. 4. No. 1. January 30TH, 1905. 
SKETCHES OF VEGETATION AT HOME 
AND ABROAD. 
[The aim of the series of papers of which this is the first is to 
record from time to time personal impressions and observations of 
characteristic floras in various parts of the world. 
These articles will not necessarily contain new facts or conclusions ; 
their primary object will be to portray, as vividly as possible, the 
striking features of interesting floras by those who have had oppor¬ 
tunities of seeing them for themselves. The papers will be illustrated 
as much as possible by diagrams illustrating features of distribution, 
and by sketches of characteristic plants. 
It is hoped that the series may help in some degree to promote 
still further that awakening interest in vegetation, as distinct from 
individual plants, of which there are many signs about us to-day.] 
I.—The Flora of the Ceylon Littoral . 1 
By A. G. Tansley 
and 
F. E. Fritsch. 
T HE flora of the hundreds of thousands of miles of coast 
bordering the tropical seas of the world is marked by a very 
striking uniformity of character and composition. Not only is the 
facies of the vegetation, except in the driest regions, practically 
everywhere the same, but the actual species composing it have a 
very extended and sometimes a world-wide range. The botanist 
suddenly transported from the coast of Ceylon, for instance, to the 
shores of some island in the Malay Archipelago, two thousand 
miles away, could not tell that he had been carried further than 
round the next headland,—he would meet with exactly the same 
species growing in exactly the same way; while if he were taken 
much further still, to the West Indies, for instance, on the other 
side of the world, he would still be at fault for a few minutes at 
1 Our observations were practically confined to the S.W. and S. 
shores of Ceylon (Negombo to Hambantota); see map, Fig. 1. 
