Here, Too, Is The
Domain Of The Wonderful Pitcher Plants (Nepenthaceae), Which Are Only
Represented Elsewhere By Solitary Species In Ceylon, Madagascar, The
Seychelles, Celebes, And The Moluccas.
Those celebrated fruits, the
Mangosteen and the Durian, are natives of this region, and will hardly
grow out of the Archipelago.
The mountain plants of Java have already
been alluded to as showing a former connexion with the continent of
Asia; and a still more extraordinary and more ancient connection
with Australia has been indicated by Mr. Low's collections from
the summit of Kini-balou, the loftiest mountain in Borneo.
Plants have much greater facilities for passing across arms of
the sea than animals. The lighter seeds are easily carried by the
winds, and many of them are specially adapted to be so carried.
Others can float a long tune unhurt in the water, and are drifted
by winds and currents to distant shores. Pigeons, and other
fruit-eating birds, are also the means of distributing plants,
since the seeds readily germinate after passing through their
bodies. It thus happens that plants which grow on shores and
lowlands have a wide distribution, and it requires an extensive
knowledge of the species of each island to determine the
relations of their floras with any approach to accuracy. At
present we have no such complete knowledge of the botany of
the several islands of the Archipelago; and it is only by such
striking phenomena as the occurrence of northern and even
European genera on the summits of the Javanese mountains that we
can prove the former connection of that island with the Asiatic
continent.
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