2 
The Municipalities of Penang and Singapore paid $100 pan. for the 
services of the Assistant Curator, Penang, and the Assistant Curator of 
Parks, Singapore, respectively, for advice regarding the planting and 
maintenance of roadside trees. In Singapore, an additional contribution of 
$ioq pan. was made from January ist for advice on the planning and 
supervision of planting in the Municipal Parks. 
PLANT COLLECTIONS AND FIELD EXCURSIONS 
The collecting of specimens was pushed forward to the utmost extent. 
About 2,500 field-numbers of plants were obtained and nearly 500 unnum¬ 
bered specimens. The material will be worked through gradually as the 
intensive study of the flora progresses in the next few years. It is realised 
that the systematic work on Malayan flowering plants must now take the 
form of critical revisions of every genus in order that the description of the 
Malayan flora may be brought into line with that of neighbouring countries 
and in order that defects in knowledge may be detected and made good. 
Especially is this important in the study of forest-trees the majority of 
which are imperfectly known. Apart, therefore, from the many novelties 
which such an accumulation of specimens must reveal, it is neeessao’ for 
tlie proper description of the recognised species and for the study of their 
variation and distribution. Considering also the complexity and richness 
of the Malayan forest-flora and the ease with which it may be destroyed, 
it is impossible at present to make too many collections. As regards the 
study of the forest-trees, it is gratifying to be able to record that through 
the collaboration of the Forest Department a comparatively cheap and 
effective method of collecting has been started by which native-collectors 
can be sent for several weeks to places where felling is in progress and the 
“spoils” of the expedition can be divided to the benefit of both Departments. 
On April 18th Mr. Corner went for three weeks to Kelantan and 
Trengganu to study the village trees in the neighbourhood of Kota Bahru 
and Kuala Trengganu; even in the populated areas many interesting dis¬ 
coveries were made. The laurel-tree (medang), for example, so abundant 
round Kota Bahru and the timber of which is used in the construction of the 
Malay houses, is evidently an undescribed species of Litsea : by the Sultan’s 
residence at Tumpat there grows a tree of Artocarpus of a species new to 
the flora : the village kandis, which occurs also in Kedah and Perlis, is the 
Indian Garcinia Cow a-, also unrecorded for Malaya : and, most remarkable, 
the Annonaceous tree, Alp honsea elliptica, which has been supposed 
very rare, is almost if not quite the commonest fruit-tree at Kuala Treng¬ 
ganu. Like so many of its family it is called Pisang from the bunches of 
fruit which suggest dumpy bananas : and the school children laughed that 
there should be anyone not knowing it. In this town also there are lnanv 
fine specimens of Chen gal Pasir, Hop ecu odorata, it being the only place in 
Malaya where a dipterocarp is grown as a village-tree, though the same 
species has been planted for an avenue at Saigon. What is probably the 
best collection of trees of Meninjau, Gnetum gnemon, in the East is to be 
found also in the kampongs of Kuala Trengganu. The flora of both these 
States, but especially that of Kelantan, contains a large number of plants 
of the monsoon-climate of Burma, Indo-China and Siam and this influx 
was found by no means identical with that in Kedah and Perlis. The 
common Lagerstrccmia floribunda, Albizzia lebbek, Terminalia. pyrifolia 
(mentalun) and Corypha-palm of Kedah, for instance, are absent from 
Kelantan, whereas Vanguieria spinosa and a species of Sapiuin which are 
common near Kota Bahru have not yet been discovered on the West side, 
