Flora of the Ceylon Littoral . 15 
in the Eastern Tropics and form a conspicuous feature of all the 
sandy coasts. 
Clerodeudron inerme is an extremely common and characteristic 
feature of the coast-flora, though it is by no means confined to sand, 
but occurs freely among rocks, on steep banks and on mud. It is a 
low bush with small ovate leaves, and white flowers with long tubes 
and very long exserted stamens and style. 
Sccevola Konigii, like several of the typical coast plants of the 
East, is a member of a mainly Australian family, the Gooden oviacea. 
The flower is remarkable for the corolla, which, at first tubular, splits 
down the posterior side to the base soon after the bud opens. 
Pandanus odomtissimus (fasciciriaris) is also one of the regular 
and most conspicuous constituents of the Beach jungle-flora all 
over the East. The characters of the “Screw-Pine” with its 
striking prop-roots are too well known to need description. The 
common species is a small tree, ten or twenty feet high. It often 
forms a regular belt at the back of the Pes-ca/r^-formation, or on 
steeper coasts immediately above high-water mark. 
Cerbera Odollam (Eve’s Apple) is a conspicuous shrub or small 
tree (sometimes 20 feet in height) with large obovate accumulate 
bright green leaves, gradually tapering to the base and with the 
pinnate veins perpendicular to the mid-rib—so characteristic 
a feature of tropical Apocynaceae. The flowers are white, abundant 
and sweet-scented. It is common as a hedgerow bush or tree all 
through the low country of Ceylon, usually close to water, and is 
particularly abundant on the coast in the neighbourhood of the 
estuaries, forming a beautiful feature of the vegetation. It flowers 
all the year round and so abundantly that flowers and fruits in 
different stages are always to be found upon it. The fruits are 
nearly spherical, with a bright green glossy skin and grow to a large 
size (3 to 3^ in. diam.) by the time they are ripe. Below the skin 
is a very thick fibrous layer containing numerous air spaces which 
make the whole fruit very light and enable it to float half out of the 
water. The one or two seeds are large and are contained in a 
hard endocarp in the centre of the fruit. The fruits are very 
common objects floating in the estuaries and lagoons of the coast. 
They can resist the salt water for a long time, and furnish an 
excellent example of adaptation to water dispersal, which is such a 
feature of many of the plants of the tropical coast flora. In 
germination the cotyledons remains enclosed in the seed, while 
the plumule forces itself between the two carpels and often grows 
