being exposed to the milder influence of the south-west wind, shows luxuriant vegetation, the result of its humid and temperate climate; whilst the eastern, like Coromandel, has a comparatively dry and arid aspect, produced by the hot winds which blow for half the year. The littoral vegetation of the seaborde exhibits little variation from that common throughout the Eastern archipelago; but it wants the Phoenix paludosa', a dwarf

1 Drs. HOOKER and THOMSON, in their Introductory Essay to the Flora of India, speaking of Ceylon, state that the Nipa fruticans (another characteristic palm of the Gangetic delta) and Cycads are also wanting there, but both these exist (the former abundantly), though perhaps not alluded to in any work on Ceylon botany to which those authors had access. In connection with this subject it may be mentioned, as a fact which is much to be regretted, that, although botanists have been appointed to the superintendence of the Botanic Gardens at Kandy, information regarding the vegetation of the island is scarcely obtainable without extreme trouble and reference to papers scattered through innumerable periodicals. That the majority of Ceylon plants are already known to science is owing to the coincidence of their being also natives of India, whence they have been described; but there has been no recent attempt on the part of colonial or European botanists even to throw into a useful form the already published descriptions of the commoner plants of the island. Such a work would be the first step to a Singhalese Flora. The preparation of such a compendium would seem to belong to the duties of the colonial botanist, and as such it was an object of especial solicitude to the late superintendent, Dr. Gardner. But the heterogeneous duties imposed upon the person holding his office (the evils arising from which are elsewhere alluded to,) have hitherto been insuperable obstacles to the attainment of this object, as

they have also been to the preparation of a systematic account of the general features of Ceylon vegetation. Such a work is strongly felt to be a desideratum by numbers of intelligent persons in Ceylon, who are not accomplished botanists, but who are anxious to acquire accurate ideas as to the aspects of the flora at different elevations, different seasons, and different quarters of the island; of the kinds of plants that chiefly contribute to the vegetation of the coasts, the plains, and mountains; of the general relations that subsist

between them and the flora of the Carnatic, Malabar, and the Malay archipelago; and of the more useful plants in science, arts, medicine, and

date-palm, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds at the delta of the Ganges. A dense growth of mangroves1 occupies the shore, beneath whose overarching roots the ripple of the sea washes unseen over the muddy beach.

Retiring from the strand, there are groups of Sonneratia2, Avicennia, Heritiera, and Pandanus; the latter with a stem like a dwarf palm, round which the serrated leaves ascend in spiral convolutions till they terminate in a pendulous crown, from which drop the amber clusters of beautiful but uneatable fruit, with a close resemblance in shape and colour to that of the pine-apple, from which, and from the peculiar arrangement of the leaves, the plant has acquired its name of the Screwpine.

&c. In the identification of the species Mr. Thwaites is to be assisted by Dr. Hooker, F.R.S.; and from their conjoint labours we may at last hope for a production worthy of the subject.

Rhizophora Candelaria, Kandelia Rheedei, Bruguiera gymnorhiza.

2 At a meeting of the Entomological Society in 1842, Dr. Templeton sent, for the use of the members, many thin slices of substance to replace cork-wood as a lining for insect cases and drawers. Along with the soft wood he sent the following notice :-" In this country (he writes from Colombo, Ceylon, May 19, 1842), along the marshy banks of the large rivers, grows a very large handsome tree, named Sonneratia acida by the younger Linnæus; its roots spread far and wide through the soft moist earth, and at various distances along send up most extraordinary long spindleshaped excrescences four or five feet above the surface. Of these Sir James Edward Smith remarks, what those horn-shaped excrescences are which occupy the soil at some distance from the base of the tree, from a span to a foot in length and of a corky substance, as described by Rumphius, we can offer no conjec

ture.' Most curious things (remarks Dr. Templeton) they are; they all spring very narrow from the root, expand as they rise, and then become gradually attenuated, occasionally forking, but never throwing out shoots or leaves, or in any respect resembling the parent root or wood. They are firm and close in their texture, nearly devoid of fibrous structure, and take a moderate polish when cut with a sharp instrument; but for lining insect boxes and making setting-boards they have no equal in the world. The finest pin passes in with delightful ease and smoothness, and is held firmly and tightly so that there is no risk of the insects becoming disengaged. With a fine saw I form them into little boards and then smooth them with a sharp case knife, but the London veneering-mills would turn them out fit for immediate use, without any necessity for more than a touch of fine glass-paper. Some of my pigmy boards are two feet long by three and a half inches wide, which is more than sufficient for our purpose, and to me they have proved a vast acquisition. The natives call them

Kirilimow,' the latter syllable signifying root.' TEMPLETON, Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. iii. p. 302.

A little further inland, the sandy plains are covered by a thorny jungle, the plants of which are the same as those of the Carnatic, the climate being alike; and wherever man has encroached on the solitude, groves of coco-nut palms mark the vicinity of his habitations.

Remote from the sea, the level country of the north has a flora almost identical with that of Coromandel; but the arid nature of the Ceylon soil, and its drier atmosphere, is attested by the greater proportion of euphorbias and fleshy shrubs, as well as by the wiry and stunted nature of the trees, their smaller leaves and thorny stems and branches.1

Conspicuous amongst them are acacias of many kinds : Cassia fistula, the wood apple (Feronia elephantum), and the mustard tree of Scripture (Salvadora Persica), which extends from Ceylon to the Holy Land. The margosa (Azadirachta Indica), the satin wood, the Ceylon oak, and the tamarind and ebony, are examples of the larger trees; and in the extreme north and west the Palmyra palm takes the place of the coco-nut, and not only lines the shore, but fills the landscape on every side with its shady and prolific groves.

Proceeding southward on the western coast, the acacias disappear, and the greater profusion of vegetation, the taller growth of the timber, and the darker tinge of the foliage, all attest the influence of the increased moisture both from the rivers and the rains. The brilliant Ixoras, Erythrinas, Buteas, Jonesias, Hibiscus, and a variety of flowering shrubs of similar beauty, enliven the forests with their splendour; and the seeds of the cinnamon, carried by the birds from the cultivated gardens near the coasts, have germinated in the sandy soil, and diversify the woods with the fresh verdure of its polished leaves and delicately-tinted shoots. It is to be found universally to a considerable height in the lower range of hills, and thither the Chalias were

1 Dr. Gardner.

accustomed to resort to cut and peel it, a task which was imposed on them as a feudal service by the native sovereign, who paid an annual tribute in prepared cinnamon to the Dutch, and to the present time this branch of the trade in the article continues, but divested of its compulsory character.

The Dutch, in like manner, maintained, during the entire period of their rule, an extensive commerce in pepper worts, which still festoon the forest, but the export has almost ceased from Ceylon. Along with these the trunks of the larger trees are profusely covered with other delicate creepers, chiefly Convolvuli and Ipomoeas; and the pitcher-plant (Nepenthes distillatoria) lures the passer-by to halt and conjecture the probable uses of the curious mechanism, by means of which it distils a quantity of limpid fluid into the vegetable vases at the extremity of its leaves. The Orchidea suspend their pendulous flowers from the angles of branches, whilst the bare roots and the lower part of the stem are occasionally covered with fungi of the most gaudy colours, bright red, yellow, and purple.

Of the east side of the island the botany has never yet been examined by any scientific resident, but the productions of the hill country have been largely explored, and present features altogether distinct from those of the plains. For the first two or three thousand feet the dissimilarity is less perceptible to an unscientific eye, but as we ascend the difference becomes apparent in the larger size of the leaves, and the nearly uniform colour of the foliage, except where the scarlet shoots of the ironwood tree (Mesua ferrea) seem like flowers in their blood-red hue. Here the broad leaves of the wild plantains (Musa textilis) penetrate the soil among the broken rocks; and in moist spots the graceful bamboo flourishes in groups, whose feathery foliage waves like the plumes of the ostrich.1

In the Malayan peninsula the bamboo has been converted into an

It is at these elevations that

instrument of natural music, by perforating it with holes, through which

the sameness of the scenery is diversified by the grassy patenas before alluded to1, which, in their aspect, though not their extent, may be called the Savannahs of Ceylon. Here peaches, cherries, and other European fruit trees, grow freely; but they become evergreens in this summer climate, and exhausted by perennial excitement, and deprived of their winter repose, they refuse to ripen their fruit. A similar failure was discovered in some European vines, which were cultivated at Jaffna; but Mr. Dyke, the government agent, in whose garden they grew, conceiving that the activity of the plants might be equally checked by exposing them to an extreme of warmth, as by subjecting them to cold, tried, with perfect success, the experiment of laying bare the roots in the strongest heat of the sun. The result verified his conjecture. The circulation of the sap was arrested, the vines obtained the needful repose, and the grapes, which before had fallen almost unformed from the tree, are now brought to thorough maturity, though inferior in flavour to those produced at home.3

The tea plant has been raised with entire success in the hills on the estate of the Messrs. Worms, at Roth

the wind is permitted to sigh; and the effect is described as perfectly charming. Mr. Logan, who in 1847 visited Naning, contiguous to the frontier of the European settlement of Malacca, on approaching the village of Kándáng, was surprised by hearing "the most melodious sounds, some soft and liquid like the notes of a flute, and others deep and full like the tones of an organ. They were sometimes low, interrupted, or even single, and presently they would swell into a grand burst of mingled melody. On drawing near to a clump of trees, above the branches of which waved a slender bamboo about forty feet in length, he found that the musical tones issued from it, and were caused by the breeze passing through perforations in the stem; the instrument thus formed is called by the natives |

the bulu perindu, or plaintive bamboo." Those which Mr. Logan saw had a slit in each joint, so that each stem possessed fourteen or twenty notes.

1 See ante, p. 24.

2 The apple-tree in the Peradenia Gardens seems not only to have become an evergreen, but to have changed its character in another particular; for it is found to send out numerous runners under ground, which continually rise into small stems and form a growth of shrublike plants around the parent tree.

3 An equally successful experiment, to give the vine an artificial winter by baring the roots, is recorded by Mr. BALLARD, of Bombay, in the Transactions of the Agric. and Hortic. Society of India, under date 24th May, 1824. Calcutta, 1850. Vol. i. p. 96.