148 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
stood. During my entire stay in Java I always carried a Malay 
hand-book with me. 
Tjibodas is at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, so the weather 
is cool and comfortable. While I was there the temperature 
ranged from 6o° Fahrenheit on the coolest night to about 75 0 
on the warmest day. The relative humidity was 100 through 
the night and seldom went below 90 even on sunny mornings. 
It rained every day. Species of Phoenix do fairly well under 
these conditions but most of the palms in the garden have a 
sorry look. Aside from the native jungle plants the trees which 
thrive best are the conifers, especially the Araucarias. There 
are also good looking Eucalyptus trees and the curious “ grass 
tree ” from Australia. I noticed one sorry specimen of our tulip 
tree ( Liriodendron tulipifera) much the worse for its wet envir¬ 
onment. The trees in the jungle, however, grow immensely tall, 
especially the rasamala, a species of Liquidamher. It is difficult 
to see anything of the trees except the trunks because the branches 
are all so far overhead. 
From Tjibodas one may ascend the Gedeh and the Pangerango. 
These peaks are the highest in Java and reach an altitude of 
10,000 feet. I went up with a native guide and we had some 
coolies to carry blankets and food. We reached the shoulder 
which connects the two peaks about noon. It was cold. There 
had been a drizzling rain all morning. We stopped in a small 
tumbled down hut which had a very leaky thatched roof and 
only a dirt floor. The coolies made a fire which filled the hut 
with smoke but they didn't mind it. They could now get warm, 
and they needed to, because, like all Javanese, they wore only 
blouse and short trousers of cotton with no shoes or stockings. 
I went with the guide up the Gedeh through the rain. The 
trees grew smaller and more gnarled the further up we went. 
At Tjibodas the general level of the forest top had been perhaps 
a hundred feet from the ground with some trees standing far 
above this height. But here, on the mountain, the trees were 
scarcely thirty feet. In the lower part of the climb we found 
some of the curious parasitic Balanophoras familiar to all who 
have read Kerner “ Natural History of Plants.” All the trees 
