4 
and Besut. Mr. C. F. Symington, Forest Research Officer, Kepong, had 
visited Gunong Tapis in 1934 and Mr. Corner had studied the lowland 
forest round the Sungei Nipa, a tributary of the Kemaman, in 1935. From 
the reports which had been circulated about Gunong Padang it appeared to 
offer a moorland vegetation similar to that on Gunong Tahan but at the 
remarkably low altitude of 4,000 ft. Mr. Moysey had visited the district 
in the previous year during his work in the National Park and his services 
were obtained through special permission of the Straits Settlements Govern¬ 
ment. The expedition left Singapore on May 22nd and returned on July 
i.Sth. Three weeks were spent near the summit of the mountain. About 
600 numbers of plants were obtained as well as a large collection of 
spirit-specimens and many excellent photographs of the vegetation. The 
examination of the results of the expedition has -been only cursory but it 
has shown that, if there is little true padang or heath-formation, the plateau 
of the mountain is an almost continuous low wood of Heptospermum, 
Baeckia and Dacrvdium such as one encounters alx>ut an altitude of 5,000 ft. 
on Gunong Tahan, and that numerous plants supposed to occur only on 
Gunong Tahan are to be found also on Gunong Padang. Indeed, the results 
of the expedition will give much support to the theory that there was 
formerly a high quartzite plateau connecting Malaya, Borneo and, perhaps, 
Sumatra and that of this plateau there remain now in Malaya only the 
Tahan-massif and its neighbouring mountains dissected by the tributaries 
of the Pahang, Trengganu and Kelantan, and such outlying monuments as 
Gunong Kerbau to the West and Gunong Kajang in Pulau Tioman and the 
cone of Pulau Tinggi to the Fast. The former height of the plateau may 
be gathered from the amount of sediment which has built the lowland plains 
of these three Eastern States. 
From May 20th—June 19th, Mr. Furtado made an excursion down 
the West side of Malaya for the purpose of collecting palms. He visited 
Kroh, Baling, Weng, Taiping, Gopeng, Tapah, Bentong, Raub, Gunong 
Angsi and Gunong Beremban. This was the first opportunity Mr. Furtado 
had had of studying the Malayan palms extensively in the forest and he 
was anxious to try out, under field-conditions, the new proposals for 
numbering palm-specimens which he had developed the previous year on 
his visit to the Buitenzorg Botanic Gardens. Palm-collections must be 
bulky, if they are to be useful, and in the case of rotans the leaves of which 
vary in shape, size and thorniness along the stems they must comprise so 
many parts of the plant that botanists have been chary of collecting them 
or have taken only scraps which are generally unsatisfactory if not mis¬ 
leading. Indeed, palm-specimens are the most difficult to manage because 
they demand not only an intimate knowledge of the classification of the 
family in order to know what parts of the giant leaves and inflorescences to 
select for drying, but much tedious labour in the correct numbering of 
every part that is taken so that they may not become mixed in the presses. 
Feather gloves are also needed for the handling of the rotans. If the 
botanist intends to collect palms, therefore, he must be prepared for 
comparatively few field-numbers and a large amount of baggage, the quality 
of the specimens outweighing their variety. Nevertheless, on his excursion, 
Mr. Furtado collected about 100 kinds of palm, the total number of 
specimens separately labelled being nearly a thousand. It will be realised 
that such a set of palms, which is the first to have been made in Malaya, is 
worth many times its number of the herbs, shrubs and treelets such as are 
immediately collected on ordinary expeditions. Mr. Furtado also took the 
opportunity of studying the wild aroids : he discovered again Homalomena 
elliptica which had been known only from a single specimen of Scortechini's 
