( 10 ) 
Vegetation of the coasts. 
Polypodium quercifolium covers in great profusion the branches of the trees 
which are standing near the sea, and is often accompanied by several orchids. 
No palms occur here, except a few Calami. 
14. Another vegetation now presents itself behind this zone of the shores, 
and is rather less monotonous in character, owing 
to the diversity of the surface and of the soil. This 
is the vegetation of the slopes of the hills and valleys influenced by the sea. 
It is, so to say, a combination of the flora of the interior parts and of the 
shore-vegetation favored by the greater moisture, so that here plants may be 
found which until now are known only from more southern parts of India, as 
Freycinetia , Anaxagorect, Dinochloa i 8fc. The greatest variety of species is 
found in this zone. Here I had always the most favorable botanical harvests 
during May and June; and whenever I penetrated to the interior, I scarcely 
could find any species except herbaceous plants and shrubs which I had not 
seen already in this region. 
This coast vegetation may range from three to four miles in breadth, but 
nowhere can any real limits be traced here. There is also no uniformity in the 
character of these forests themselves along their whole extension, but they 
change as soil and surface become different. To treat of them more easily, 
they may be brought under the three following heads :— 
A. -—Evergreen forests. 
B. —Leaf-shedding forests. 
C. —Bamboo jungles. 
In the following pages, I shall try to give as correct a picture of these several 
forests as the short period of my stay allowed me to observe them. I must 
remark, however, that such forests are not always so strictly separated in 
nature. Many tracts may be found where leaf-shedding and evergreen forests 
are growing nearly equally mixed together, or even intersected by bamboo 
jungles. This, however, does not diminish the value of my proposed classifi¬ 
cation. 
The evergreen forests are most extensive on these islands. Trees, how- 
a.—E vergreen forests. ° ver ’ ? xis * in such a quantity in all the valleys 
bordering the sea, that I am obliged to treat these 
evergreen forests under two separate divisions. These are— 
(1.)—The kuppalee forests. 
(2.)—The mixed forests. 
(1.) The kuppalee forests occupy nearly all the months of the creeks and 
the level lands along the coasts behind the beach and the mangrove swamps. 
They consist in some places nearly exclusively of Mimusops Indica (called 
kuppalee-theet by the Burmans, which means tree of the Andamanese), which 
is a tree ranging from 70 to 80 feet, by a girth of 12 to 14 feet, and growing 
up as straight as a JDipterocarpus. The finest forests of this species are along 
the western coasts at the Labyrinth Islands and at Macpherson’s Straits. 
Calophyllum Inophyllum , and JELernandia , and also Macaranga Indica often 
associate themselves, and a few other kinds of the surrounding forest trees 
occur in a less number. ILemicyclia Andamanica is often associated (as at 
Macpherson’s Straits) in a nearly equal proportion with the kuppalee trees. 
Such forests are rather free from all kinds of climbers, and the prickly canes 
(Calami) occur only along their margins. 
(2.) The tropical mixed forests now begin around these forests, but thev 
also commence immediately beyond the sea-shore zone where the ridges rise 
abruptly from the sea. Here it is that the traveller has the most difficultv in 
forcing his way, from the great number of climbers. The typical tree is Dip* 
terocarpus lavis , after which follow as the principal trees of these forests, but 
prevailing in one locality more than in another, Dipterocarpus alatus , Mesua 
jerrea, Lagerstrcemia hypoleuca, Pterocarpus dalbergioides , Irina glabra ; and 
another species, Dracontomelum sylvestre , Albizzia LebbeJc , Adenanthera Pavo - 
