TABLE XXIII. SuRvEY or THl FoRESTS oF Tm VAILALA Riva$. P___redominant species, viz., over 41 per ent. of Cubi Contents. Cubic Contente. Percentages of- Herbarium. Number Acres' Number. Local Name. Scientific Name. of Tm. To Total To Total per Tree. Total Per Acre Per Tree Cubic Number C.F. C.F .. . Contents. . Trees. 5 Okamu .. .. Pometia pinnata .. .. 87 3,025 159 34 4*64 17*92 2 34 Ilimo .. .. Octomeles sumatrana .. 26 7,078 39"3 272 10*87 5. 35 7 278 Haikaka.. .. Indt. .. .. .. 14 2,931 16"3 209 4-45 2*88 13 279 Sihu .. .. Pterocymbium sp. .. .. 20 3,773 20"9 188 5.7 4*12 9 300 Oko .. .. Dysoylum pettigrewianum .. 30 3,473 19*2 116 5*33 6*18 6 Total .. .. 177 20,280 112"0 114 3100 0 36-00 No. 332, poioro, is a fan palm, the only one I have seen in Papua. The spread of its circular leaf, with its fimbricated circumference, is 6-7 feet in diameter. Two palms will thatch a house, and so it is much prized. No. 333, pai-iru (Heritiera littoralis), turned out to be the same as No. 85, napera, of the Suku people. It yields a dark brown, hard, handsome wood. No. 334, kavea (Homalivm pachytllm), yields a uni- formly brown wood of a hard constructional type. No. 335, urau (Dracontomelum sp.), yields a daik brown, well-figured hard wood, very strong, rather heavy. No. 336, lara (Elaeocarpus sp.), yields a pale, light, rather porous wood. No. 337, abagbua, a canoe wood tree. No. 338, mahei (Canarium grandistipidatum), yields a pretty mouse-brown wood. No. 339 is the same as No. 318. (Kingiodendron sp.). No. 340, idare (Terminalia sp.), yields a wood with a cigar-box texture and grain. No. 341, hewara (Ficus sp.), a grey-brown wood, with a satin sheen on the quarter. In addition to the above, a few species met with in other parts of the Territory were found on the Vailala. In the first place, No. 9, cedar, occurred here and there. Two were met with on the strips, and the Keke people and some u- ku-ku-ku folk, who came down to visit me, showed me stumps of trees they had cut for Mr. McDonald and a few standing trees. As cedar country goes, this would, I suppose, be regarded as good for Papua. I estinate that there were about one tree to 100 acres. No. 10, melila, was represented by fifteen trees, and, while the bulk of these were in swamp country, with the same queer root system as I have noted about the Baroi melila, stoe were growing on higher ground, and were of normal habit. Two Flindersia, No. 15-were seen. The wood of this species is rather like Queensland silver ash (F. schot- tiaia). Leibhhardt's pine, No. 19, was not common. The rare aremore, No. 22 (Horsfieldia silvestris), was met with, also specimens of No. 57, the cinnamon tree. Another sterclaceaein Pterygota Forbesii, No. 24, was found again, and of course Alstonia scholaris, here called aijapo, was represented, but rather poorly. o. 33, bara, a Diospyros that thrives above Galley Reach, and whose jet black bark is very distinctive, was found here also. No. 36, okaka (Terminalia catappoidecs), was represented by twelve trees, and, curiously enough, its brother, Terminalia okari, whose nut is such a deli- cacy, was also met with. No. 47, waiamahasi (Celtis philippinensis), is a tree I have now met everywhere in the rain forests. Specimens of the dipertocarp, No. 136, karawa (Anisoptera), so common in the Bunda dis- trict, were comparatively rare on the Vailala. No. 170, the wild mango, is protected by the Vailala native. No. 226, Wormia quercifolia, was represented by one specimen. My visit to the Vailala completed my inspection of the rain forests regions of the Territory, and I next visited the mountain forests. Before going on to de- scribe the flora of this region, I will treat the country, which lies between the lowland mixed rain forests and the mid-mountain forests, and which I have designated as foothill forests. FOOTHILL FORESTS. These forests lie, roughly, between 1,000 and 5,500 feet. As I have already remarked, the boundaries are by no means clear-the mid-mountain forests coming down often below 5,000 feet, while the mixed rain forest is continuously cropping up in alluvial gullies and pockets in the mountains. Indeed, the foothill forests are not at all an easy type to describe. They lack character, and at times seem only a degenerated form of the rain forests of the lowlands; the same species keep cropping up, and the only difference is that the foothill rain forest is a pole wood, or at best an assembly of low, small-girthed trees. One has just decided that such is the case, and is beginning to ascribe reasons for the low quality of the rain forest, when patches of purely foothill species are met with, and the rain forest becomes quite dominated by what is certainly a different type of woodland. Even at its best, the volume of timber is small, and the foothill forest lacks quality; its height is low, and the trees do not attain the girth they do in the rain forests of the lowlands or in the mid-mountain forests higher up. There is still evidence at this elevation that if the rain forest type of the low- lands were given anything like favorable environmental conditions it would establish itself, ousting the foot- hill type proper. So it is that wherever there is a valley with sufficient flat land for the river to deposit alluvium, the rain forest of the Pometia type pre- dominates, whatever the altitude, up to the cloud belt. The foothill forests are driven to the rocky country, the sharper slopes, the drier, poorer soils. Later I shall show that precisely the same thing occurs to the hoop pine forest in the mid-mountain belt. Certain true lowland species are also found in the typical foothill forests, and these I enumerate below:- The most characteristic of the foothill trees is, I think, the Quercus Junghuhnii, which yields an oak type of wood, and does not resemble a chestnut in any respect, despite the botanical genus that was first ascribed to it. It arrests the eye at once on account of its habit of growth. It grows in clumps-sometimes an acre in extent-and the ground beneath it is clear of under- growth, and is only covered with dry leaves, reminding one forcibly of a forest in a temperate climate. Its bark is channelled, like a fluted' Corinthian pillar, and at its base it frequently throws out a petticoat of sucker shoots, so heightening the illusion of an old-country tree, for it resembles the lime in this respect. Its leaves are long and narrow, and taper to a fine point. They are not divided up with deep notches like the