Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra23241891roya).pdf/13

 THE GRASSES AND SEDGES OF THE MALAY PENINSULA.

N publishing this list of the Grasses and Sedges of the Peninsula (Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ), I am well aware that it is by no means complete. From many parts of the Peninsula we have no specimens of these families, and especially is this the case as regards the great mountain region which traverses the Peninsula. From the uplands we shall doubtless procure many interesting kinds when the country is more opened up, and from the northern parts of the Peninsula bordering on Siam we may expect to obtain many Assam and Burmese species not yet met with. This list rather represents the low-land glumaceous flora of the South.

A country which like this is covered with dense forest for the greater part is, as a rule, poorly provided with grasses and sedges, for few of these plants occur in high forest. Yet on the whole there is a considerable variety, and among them not a few very interesting and curious plants are to be met with.

I am much indebted to Professor HACKEL of St. Polten for identifying many of the grasses, and to Mr. C. B. CLARKE for much assistance in the matter of Cyperaceæ.

Habitats.—The most productive localities for grasses and sedges are the damp low swamps and rice-fields, the banks of streams and the sandy shores of rivers and seas. The open country where the jungle has been cleared and secondary forest is returning is very barren of plants of interest, although large tracts are covered with glumaceous plants. Imperata, Ischæmum, Paspalum, Panicum of the Digitaria