Download Unique WCP identifier: WCP4905.5312 Manuscript by Wallace

Unique WCP identifier: WCP4905.5312
Manuscript by Wallace, Alfred Russel
Dated: [not recorded]
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[[1]]
Aspects of Nature
1. Malay Peninsula
Narrow flat-bottomed winding vallies [sic] , with undulating banks
& abrupt small hills. Endless forests. Openings marking Malay
villages with Cocoa nuts. Gomuti palms & Arecas with other fruit
tree[s]. In forests palms comparatively scarce. Pandani also but
a few long leaved stemless species are abundant &
characteristic & serve for making their < Cadjani ?> in roofing[,]
mats for boats[,] temporary houses[,] carts &c. Small climbing
pandani also occur. Ferns & orchids are scarce except in the
mountains. In Singapore tall unbranched pandani with grassy
tufts of leaves are a more characteristic feature in the swamps,
and a species of Bombaceae which spreads out its arms quite
horizontally at intervals on the stem has a most singular
appearance. Along the sides of the roads a common but
beautiful species of fern ( [blank space] ) grows in luxuriance
covering banks & hedges and climbing up to a considerable
height over other trees, while in the interior among the ancient
jungles small y tree ferns may often be seen raising their
feathery crowns by the roadside. Waste land[,] neglected
plantations &c have a very miserable appearance owing to the
poorness of the soil. They are covered with a brown sedgy
vegetation & stunted shrubs of the a universal purple flowered
Melastonia, the commonest plant in the whole country from
Penang to Borneo.
Old fruit trees near Malacca very beautiful. Lovely shady roads &
palms around the Town, infinitely surpass to any thing to be
seen in the uncultivated districts.
[[2]]
N[orth] W[est] Coast of Borneo
Coast swampy flat with isolated abrupt hills often very high. Here
the characteristic features are the vast tracts of Nipa palms[,]
their huge globular fruits borne near the ground form among the
leaves & their rhizoma or ground stem winding about like a huge
serpent. All along the sandy beaches Casuarinae are a most
striking feature as well as numerous species of branched
Pandani, rivalling palms in their [word deleted] appearance. The
Pandani in fact are here as varied and interesting as the palms - some species have huge leaves <scored> like 15 feet long &
growing in a regular spiral like the screw of some huge machine,
around the summit of a thick straight stem. It is strange to stand
beneath one of these & look up at the strange mathematical
regularity of this vegetable screw. Others are weak and half
climbing scrambling about trees & brushwood while others
regularly climb up forest trees.
Farther in the interior the country is generally flat but covered
with slight undulations & ridges of gravel & clay seldom rising
more than 50 feet above the general level. Abrupt hills of
porphyry & other <new> precipitations of limestone rise here &
there to the height of one[,] two or three thousand feet. On these
hills are magnificent timber trees & the Dyak villages are marked
by a dense mass of Cocoa Areca nuts & other fruit trees. In every
part of the Country ferns & orchids seem far <more> abundant
than in Malacca & Singapore. Of the former many curious
species with their pale green undivided fronds grow on the
banks of mountain streams & have all the aspect of exogenous
foliage. On the mountains many pretty climbing species are
found. Orchids are most abundant, the greater part however
having inconspicuous flowers. Dead & decaying trees [[3]] near
the sea are often covered by them. Others grow from the
branches of mangroves, while on the mountains the
overhanging edges of precipices almost always bear a
profusion. In the lofty jungle some of the highest trees have their
topmost branches nearly covered with these, while there are
other terrestrial species growing among grass and low herbage.
The palms generally have an aspect little different from those of
S[outh] America. The Arecas have all the appearance of
Euterpes while Arenga much resembles <Maximiliana> [illeg].
Some however have an aspect peculiarly their own such as the
Caryotas with their larger leaves & triangular toothed panicles, &
the little Licualas with their square fan shaped leaves and
square topped leaflets, while the genus Calancus though
somewhat resembling [ blank space ] is so excessively abundant
& of so many different species as to [MS blotted] form a
distinctive [word deleted] feature of the Eastern when compared
with the Western forests.
In the general gloom of the forests themselves & the absence of
colour (which I believe to be with my friend Mr Spruce to be
rather a character of tropical than temperate regions) there is
little to distinguish them from those of the Amazon. Trees which
bear their flowers upon their stems alone are very characteristic
of this region & some among them are very striking objects. An
Amonaceous tree is particularly remarkable, its tall slender trunk
being at times thickly covered with [word deleted] bunches of
large flowers of the most vivid orange, extending often 30 ~ 40
feet in height for which distance the stem is completely hidden
by them. The fruit that succeeds [word deleted] [[4]] as
remarkable as the flowers are beautiful. Each carpel is borne on
a long stalk and as they are very numerous they have the
appearance of a large bunch of fruit produced from a single
flower the calyx of which remains at the base. Besides this the
only handsome flowers are the Orchids of the genus Coelogyne
& the elegant Vanda Lowii of which I found but one fine
specimen with 20 ~ 30 flower <spikes> each 6 feet in length.
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Copyright of text: ©A. R. Wallace Literary Estate
Transcribed by: Lord, Annette on 17/12/2012
Edited: 15/01/2013 - Catchpole, Caroline;
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Please cite this transcript as follows:
Wallace, Alfred Russel. (Year not recorded). [WCP4905.5312:
Manuscript]. In : Beccaloni, G. W. (Ed.). Wallace Letters Online .
<
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/
library-collections/wallace-letters-online/4905/5312/T/details.html
> [accessed 16 April 2014*] *Please give the precise date you
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This transcript was last edited on 16/05/2013