Flora of the Ceylon Littoral. 53 
of wood, apparently from riverside trees, bits of bamboo stem, 
fragments of coconut husks and leaves. Among the fruits and 
seeds were Catophyllum Inophyllum (very abundant), Heritiera 
littorahs (Fig. 15), Pandanus- nuts, Dipteroccirpus and Vateria fruits, 
mangrove embryos, and many other undetermined forms. The sand 
around was blackened over considerable areas, apparently by the 
water spreading fine particles of humus thinly over it. 
The thickest masses of drift were very moist and quite warm 
to the hand, and in this natural forcing bed many different plants 
had germinated. The thick line of brown-black humus with the 
fresh green leaves of the seedlings arising from it at intervals was a 
most striking sight. Of these the most conspicuous were Cerbera 
Odollam, Calopliyllum Inophyllum, Bruguiera gymnoi hiza, Crinum 
asiaticum and Colocasia antiquorum (from bits of old rhizome). The 
first two had perhaps little chance of establishing themselves on this 
spit of almost pure sand, even apart from the goats which constantly 
eat off the tops of the young plants; though the seedlings had 
often grown a foot or more high. Certainly for the mangrove the 
situation was impossible. But the last two species looked like really 
establishing themselves. They had already produced large healthy 
plants and many other individuals of the same species were growing 
•on the spit. At the back of the spit, on the shore of the estuary, 
was more drift, and here also some seeds had germinated. On 
another part of the shore at Kalutara, seeds of Ipomcea hiloha, 
evidently thrown up by the sea, were germinating in pure sand 
-close to high-tide mark. The growth of the seedlings was extremely 
slow, the internodes being very short and the leaves thick and 
minute (Fig. 2, D), while there was a tap-root of great length. 
Only after some time were the typical creeping stems thrown out. 
Canavalia obtusifolia was found germinating in a similar spot, but 
this species is favoured by its large and very fleshy cotyledons. 
We did not observe so abundant a drift, nor such obviously 
good conditions for germination, on the sea front at any other 
locality, though we found, at one time or another, the fruits or 
seeds of all the common coast trees thrown up by the water on to 
the sand. 1 But on the shores of the estuaries at the back of the 
spit which is so common a feature at the mouths of the rivers on 
this part of the coast we found in all cases drift-borne plants 
germinating and often establishing themselves. 
1 The occurrence, nature and abundance of drift is also clearly a 
variable, probably partly a periodic phenomenon, the study 
of which would be of interest. 
