Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/173

Rh ENTIKONMENT OF TEE APE MAN 167

PRsent fauna and flora. Of its 90 existing mammals no genera and onlj 5 or 6 Bpecies are peculiar. Of its 300 land birds many are Indo- Ciinese and only about 45 are peculiar. The modern flora is also dis- tinttly Malayan or Asiatic in character.

The plants found associated with the ape man are of the greatest

mtereat. They number 54 specicB and the remarkable fact should be

Kc^ed that none of these are extinct gpecies, a sure indication of their

^IfiiBtocene age. Twenty-two families are represented, the most abun-

"*"* being the bread fruit banyan or fig family (Moracese), the custard

%*e or pawpaw family (Anonacee) and the hturel family (Lauraceie).

^ "Were banyans and figs, jack fruit, mangosteen and custard apple,

- ^ and beans, and a variety of other fruit-bearing trees that may

" ~3'i«lded toll to the Trinil race. The Chinese banyan, a large widely

E^'t^^ing, fast-growing tree, a twig of which is shown in the accompany-

"ing Bketeh (Fig, 3), was present at Trinil at that time. The rasamala

��{Aliingia excelsa Noronha) related to oar sweet gum was also found at Trinil. To-day it does not occur in the vicinity, alQiottgh it is one of the tallest and noblest trees of central and western Java, extending thence northwestward to the Asiatic mainland.

The present geographical distribution of these early Pleistocene plants is somewhat different from what it was at the time of the ape man and these differences are a measure of the time that has elapsed since thoBA remote days. Only ten of these plants still flourish in the im-

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