i5 
Ridley .— The Distribution of Plants. 
of age and wide dispersal, as we may assume that the cellular plants were 
the earliest evolved, but we know that the spores of these plants are lighter 
and more easily dispersed than those of any Phanerogams, and that the 
plants are much less exigent in their requirements of suitable soils and 
climates. They are, too, the first vegetation to appear on exposed surfaces. 
Treub’s investigations on Krakatau Island in 1886, three years after the 
total destruction of all vegetation by volcanic action, shows that the blue- 
green algae were the first colonists on the bare pumice and volcanic ash 
and exposed blocks of rock (Ernst, 4 New Flora of Krakatau p. 64). The 
same phenomenon appears on other exposed surfaces, such as a newly-built 
wall, as I have often observed in Singapore. First appears a coat of algae, 
then mosses, then ferns, and lastly, when these have made sufficient soil, come 
flowering plants. 
A few Myxomycetes have been collected in Singapore, of which may 
be mentioned as of wide distribution : 
Physarum nutans , Pers.: Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North 
America. 
Physarum compressum , All. : with the same distribution, and the West 
Indies and South America. 
Stemonitis fusca, Roth. : Europe, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, North and 
South America. 
Lycogala miniatum , Pers.: Europe, Tropical Africa, North and South 
America. 
Other Fungi are more local, especially of course the parasitic ones. 
We have in the Malay Peninsula : 
Clavaria fusiformis , Sowerb.: also Europe and North America. 
Agaricus campestris , Linn. : whole world. 
Hygrophorus puniceus , Fries, as plentiful in Singapore as in Europe, 
and many others. 
Of Lichens Cladonia rangiferina , Linn., is as abundant on the Malay 
mountains as it is in palaearctic regions. 
Vascidar Cryptogams. 
Rhizocarpeae. We have an Azolla widely distributed over Africa and 
Asia, and undoubtedly carried about by man ; and a Marsilca which 
occurs in rice-fields and roadside ditches in Penang and Province Wellesley, 
and is probably introduced also. 
Selaginella. 
We have thirty-seven species, of which twenty-one are endemic. 
S.flabellata occurs in all the tropics except Africa; and one or two other 
species go as far as China and one into Polynesia. 
Of Lycopodiaceae, Lycopodium and Psilotum , there are no endemic 
