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The present paper is an attempt to describe the vegetation on the upper part of Gunong Belumut, a mountain situated in the south of the Malay Peninsula, about the middle of the State of Johore. The summit is 3,321 feet above sea level, and the area here dealt with is that lying between an altitude of about 2,800 feet and the summit. The writer visited this locality in May 1923, in company with Mr. G. R. Fulton, Assistant Government Geologist, to whom he wishes to express his very cordial thanks for the opportunity of making the expedition. The route followed was that made by Mr. J. G. Watson, Conservator of Forests, Johore, who had ascended the mountain a short time previously. Except a few plants obtained by Mr. Watson, no collections had been made on the mountain.  The jungle track starts from about the 14th. mile on the Kluang-Mersing road. From this point to the Sungei Berhidong at the foot of G. Belumut is about 11 or 12 miles, the track crossing the ridge of G. Chemundong at a height of 1,265 feet. From the camp by S. Berhidong, at 450 ft. above sea, to the summit of the mountain is about three miles. The lower part of the ascent is through rather dry Dipterocarp forest, with Bertam (Eugeissonia) as the chief undergrowth. At about 2,500 ft. a transition begins to occur to a forest of crowded trees of much lower stature, gradually more and more covered with liverworts and mosses. Within about 300 ft. the change is complete from a fairly high forest to the mossy elfin forest which covers most of the area between 2,800 ft. and the summit. On the northern slope however the mossy forest is replaced by an open scrub in which for the most part Matonia pectinata is dorminant, with stunted shrubs and trees growing above it at intervals (Plate I). The transition from the forest to the scrub is very sharp near the summit, but less so at a lower altitudes. The name Belumut is descriptive of the mossy condition of the summit. A camp was made on the summit of the mountain, and seven days spent there. As complete a collection as possible was made both of flowering plants and cryptograms, and the writer is greatly indebted to Mr. I. H. Burkill for the determination of the former, and to Mr. H. N. Dixon for the determination of mosses.  The writer is responsible for naming the Pteridophytes and has attempted to identify the more important of the liverworts which form such a conspicuous feature of the vegetation.      

 

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The literature on the biology of pollination and fruit production of coconut is extremely sparse and what litle is available is distributed in numerous books and periodicals so that investigators have experienced great difficulties in consulting them. An attempt is made here to bring together all the available studies on the subject, including my own observations, a part of which have already been published in the Poona Agricultural College Magazine and the Agricultural Journal of India (10). I am indebted to Mr. I. H. Burkill for the information quoted in this paper from the German and Dutch books and to Mr. F. N. Chasen for the identification of some of the insect visitors to coconut flowers.

 

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It is not possible that Phyllocactus hookeri, a Brazilian member of the Cactus family, can be a plant which was treasured in China in the time of the Sung Dynasty (960 to 1278 A. D.); but from information very kindly supplied to the Gardens by Mr. Tan Tang Niah, J. P., President of the Chong Cheng School in Singapore, it seems that in his native Amoy it is now identified with the "Kheng-fa" plant of the Chinese classics.  

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It was pointed out to me by Mr. Burkill that in the specimens placed under Semecarpus curtisii, King, in the Singapore Herbarium, there was a difference between those from the North and those from the South of the Peninsula. On examination, it was found that there was a distinct difference, almost enough to admit of a new species being erected, had there not been one plant (Ridley 10566, from Ulu Selangor) which was intermediate between the two forms both in locality and in character.

 

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Since the publication of Mr. Ridley's "List of the Fern Allies and Characeae of the Malay Peninsula" (Journ, S. B., R. Asiatic Society No. 80, 1919, p. 139) the following species of Lycopodium not there recorded have been collected.

 

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In June 1924 an Oberonia was found in some plenty at the foot of the Main range of the Peninsula near Tanjong Malim, which in cultivation in Singapore produced flowers freely in September: it proves to be a species new to the Peninsula and appears to be undescribed. It is here named O. fungum-olens from the smell of its flowers being just such as is given out by species of Fomes and other similar fungi. The colour of these small but numerous flowers is likewise suggestive of these fungi. Its affinity is with O. anceps, Lindl. and O. spathulata, Lindl. which are found rather widely in Eastern Malaysia.  Ridley remarks of O. anceps that it is "the largest native species" (Mat. Fl. Mal. Penins. Monocots., I, 1908, p. 18); but this new one is larger: so also is O. spathulata, which was unrecorded for the Peninsula in 1908.  

 

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The Malay-Borneo Exhibition (Singapore, April, 1922) with its agricultural and horticultural objects collected from all parts of the Malay Peninsula, from Sarawak and from Brunei offered an unequalled opportunity of collecting information regarding native crops and was so used. Then at its winding up, through the Committee for the Agri-Horticultural Section exhibitors were persuaded to give many of their exhibits to the Botanic Gardens, notably roots, and from among them a set of yams went into cultivation in the Economic Garden for better study. This is a report upon them. Of their genus, - the genus Dioscorea, - four species were exhibited in abundance in the following order:- Dioscorea alata, Linn. - the Greater Yam, Dioscorea esculenta, Burk. - the Lesser Yam, Dioscorea hispida, Dennst. - The Gadong, Dioscorea bulbifera, Linn. - of all four species there were exhibits from the Malay Peninsula; of the first two from Brunei; and of the first from Sarawak. Incidentally it was observed that Yam-scale exists in Malacca, Klang, Pahang and Brunei. The tubers after a preliminary disinfection, were planted on April, 21st. They were dug again on January 6th., 1923.  

 

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This orchid was brought to me by Mr. Poul Feddersen as an epiphyte which he had found near Johore Bahru. It is a typical Dendrobium of the section Sarcopodium, falling, in Dr. F. Kranzlin's arrangement of the species of Sarcopodium (Engler's Pflanzenreich, IV, 50, II B. 21, p. 321), near to Dendrobium elongatum, Lindl., but being quite distinct from it, and not possessing the affinity to the section Desmotrichum which that species has. As one of the Sarcopodiums with rather numerous flowers, and these prettily coloured, it may not be worthy of cultivation. The duration of the flowers, however, is unknown to me, and possibly it is a little exacting in the conditions of flowering.      

 

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The late Dr. Karl Schumann defined in 1899 a genus Haplochorema, with then four species from Borneo, to which he added two more from the same island in 1900.  He remarked that its affinity was close with Kaempferia, but that by having an unilocular ovary, it appeared sharply disitnguished from this and from other genera of the Zingiberaceae to which it belongs.  If the character drawn from the ovary holds good than a Sumatran plant now in cultivation in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore is also a Haplochorema: but it suggests Gastrochilus more than Kaempferia.  The ovary of all the species in these three genera should be examined afresh to decide how they differ and are to be distinguished.  Dr. T. Valeton has already questioned the soundness of Karl Schumann's judgment in regard to an unicellular ovary in a few Zingiberaceae marking them off as a genus, and in the Bulletin du Jardin Botanique de Buitenzorg, series 2, No. 27, 1918, p. 115, has reminded us that Curcuma Kunstleri, Baker, may possess one as an abnormality.

 

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When a traveller ascends from the Semangkok pass to Fraser Hill, he passes at about 3300 feet out of a very lofty forest into one of lesser growth - its tall trees being 80 - 100 feet high at Fraser Hill. At a little distance from Fraser Hill where the range runs higher, about say 4700 feet, another type of forest appears, being of lesser growth and more mossy. The forest which we have studied especially is a part of that between 3300 and 4700 feet, namely that at Fraser Hill itself between 4000 and 4370 feet. Of its woody shading plants 57% are confined to the Peninsula, of its epiphytes 64% and its ground vegetation (seed plants) 63%. These are high percentages and indicate a considerable isolation of the mountains of the Peninsula. The species of the forest which are not endemic exist for the most part as lowland plants in the south of the Peninsula; by doing which they suggest that when the Peninsula was joined by land to Sumatra or to Borneo the land bridge was in climate and want of elevation as Johore and Singapore. It is clear that the montane species did not cross it. These montane species were evolved locally from typically Malaysian genera, and do not declare themselves immigrants evolved elsewhere. All their genera except Daphne, Geostachys, and Nenga are known from Borneo and all except Leptorrhyncha, Blastus, Anerincleistus, Phyllagathis, Filitia, Dacrydium, Agathis (introduced however) Camptandra, Geostachys and Joinvillea are known from Java; whereas as many as 60 of the genera are absent from Ceylon. We recognise as present another flora - the flora that requires open ground. It is small and of mixed origin, for there are in it species whose genesis would seem to be upon ground bared by landslides, and there are intruders following man. The flora is rather small for analysis though very interesting.  

 

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In this enumeration the literature cited is the last only which sums up in any way the distribution of the plants in various parts of Western Malaysia.

 

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If reference be made to this Bulletin Vol. 2, No. 1, 1918, p. 9, a note will be found by Prof. C.F. baker upon lettuces tried by him in the Econimic Garden, Singapore. Since then, other lettuces have been tried, and the last of the experiments done, will be reported on here. The seed came from three different firms, Messrs, Sutton and Sons, Reading, England; Messrs. Vilmorin, Paris; and Messrs. Dreer & Co. Philadelphia U.S.A. The lettuces of different origin could not be tried against each other, as it was impossible to sow them together, but those from each firm were grown side by side.

 

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Within the last few years a little information has rreached the Botanic Gardens upon plants raised in the north of the Peninsula for the sake of the blue dye that they yield; and three have been submitted for determination being :- Indigofera suffruticosa, Mill. Strobilanthes flaccidifolius, Nees, and Marsdenia tinctoria, R. Br.

 

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The recent fruiting of the Cohune palm, believed to be its first in the Malay Peninsula, calls for more than a bald record. With object in view the following notes have been prepared and give (1) a short description of the plant, (2) its native habitat, (3) its uses, so far known, (4) the results analysis of the Nut and difficulties in oil extraction, (5) its possibilities.  The plants mentioned above, as having fruited, are situated for the most part in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore: but two of a row of four plants in front of the Raffles Museum, Singapore, have also fruited. These plants are all about the same height and were probably raised from one particular batch of seeds, several consignments of which have been received and successfully raised at the Botanic Gardens, at various times. In view of this it can be safely assumed that all the plants now fruiting are of the same age. No record has been found to indicate the exact age of the trees, but as a result of careful enquiries it has been established beyong doubt, that they are from 25 to 30 years old.  Care has been taken to avoid understanding the age, in order that experiments from a commercial point of view, should not be attempted under a misapprehension as to the length of time which must elapse between the time of sowing the seed and the fruiting period. Up to the latter part of 1918, the plants of Attalea Cohune in the Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, Ceylon had not produced fruits.   

 

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In the Gardens' Bulletin (this volume No. 3, 1918, pp. 87-91) short notes were given upon the above named two West African Dioscoreas, being important foods of many millions of Negroes. In it the identity of the second with Dioscorea cayensis was stated; but no latin name was used for the first; and the purpose of returning to the subject here is to suggest that it is D. rotundata, Poiret (encyclopedie methodique, supplement, vol. III, 1913, p. 139). D. rotundata was described upon a specimen from the New World: but that Poiret could arrive at describing an African plant as West Indian is very easily understood.

 

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In a very interesting account of "The origin and ethnological significance of Indian boat designs" (Memoirs Asiatic Soc. Bengal, VII. 1920, p. 139 - 256) Mr. James Howell suggests that a boat-using community once occupied the coasts of Southern India which was of Negrito stock, and this was followed by a proto-Polynesian stock, and then by the Malaysian wave which reached Madagascar. Later the Dravidians came into Southern India and Ceylon from the Mediterranean by land, and completely absorbed the sea-going people whom they found already there. These suggestions are worth remembering in connection with the migration of useful plants: the coconut for instance may have reached India by the agency of the second stock.

 

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