Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra25271894roya).pdf/51

 mass of creepers and thick foliage which often mats the tops of the highest trees together, and causing them to fall and roll to some distance.

The Willughbeias are lofty climbers in the jungles. They have large dull green or yellowish inconspicuous fruits, pear- shaped or globose. The seeds are soft and enclosed in a sweet and eatable flesh, of which the monkeys are very fond. There are a number of seeds in a single fruit, and if, as sometimes happens, the fruit falls whole on the ground the seeds all germinate in the fruit, so that one finds a small cluster of plants where a fruit has fallen and decayed. After these have grown a few inches, all or nearly all perish from overcrowding, and in localities where monkeys are scarce I have seen the ground covered in places with seedlings, of which in a few weeks none are left. If, however, a flock of monkeys visits the locality when the plant is in fruit, all the best fruits are speedily devoured. Monkeys like other mammals are very greedy eaters, and when there is plenty of fruit on a Willughbeia, they do not entirely finish each fruit, but tear it to bits and scatter the seeds in different directions, only eating bits of it. The seeds of the Willughbeia are soft and comparatively tasteless, or if they have a flavour it is bitter and unpleasant, but a great many do get bitten up and destroyed by the monkeys, even if a a considerable number are detached and scattered about, unharmed.

It has been pointed out to me that Willughbeia seed to be satisfactorily planted must be thrown at the base of or near a big tree so that the creeper may have a support to climb on, and this is brought about in the following way. A monkey seizes a fine fruit to eat, the others of the flock immediately rush at him to take it away, he scrambles into the nearest big tree and getting into the fork or behind a big branch devours it with hurried bites for fear of being robbed, throwing the seeds at the foot of the tree up which the young plant can eventually climb.

Nearly all the Willughbeias and the plants of the allied genera Melodinus and Leuconotis are climbers in thick jungle, and in this case the fruits are, as above said, green, or at most