There is little cultivation, except in the Tengger, where the natives grow maize, rye and tobacco, and various European vegetables (cabbage, potatoes, &c.), with which they supply the lowland markets. In western Java one of the most striking features of the upper parts of this temperate region is what Schimper calls the "absolute dominion of mosses," associated with the "elfin forest," as he quaintly calls it, a perfect tangle of "low, thick, oblique or even horizontal stems," almost choked to leaflessness by their grey and ghostly burden. Much of the lower vegetation begins to have a European aspect; violets, primulas, thalictrums, ranunculus, vacciniums, equisetums, rhododendrons (_Rhod. retusum_). The _Primula imperialis_, found only on the Pangerango, is a handsome species, prized by specialists. In the fourth or alpine zone occur such distinctly European forms as _Artemisia vulgaris_, _Plantago major_, _Solanum nigrum_, _Stellaria media_; and altogether the alpine flora contains representatives of no fewer than thirty-three families. A characteristic shrub is _Anaphalis javanica_, popularly called the Javanese edelweiss, which "often entirely excludes all other woody plants."[11] The tallest and noblest of all the trees in the island is the rasamala or liquid-ambar (_Altingia excelsa_), which, rising with a straight clean trunk, sometimes 6 ft. in diameter at the base, to a height of 100 to 130 ft., spreads out into a magnificent crown of branches and foliage. When by chance a climbing plant has joined partnership with it, the combination of blossoms at the top is one of the finest colour effects of the forest. The rasamala, however, occurs only in the Preanger and in the neighbouring parts of Bantam and Buitenzorg. Of the other trees that may be classified as timber--from 300 to 400 species--many attain noble proportions. It is sufficient to mention _Calophyllum inophyllum_, which forms fine woods in the south of Bantam, _Mimusops acuminata_, _Irna glabra_, _Dalbergia latifolia_ (sun wood, English black-wood) in middle and east Java; the rare but splendid _Pithecolobium Junghuhnianum_; _Schima Noronhae_, _Bischofia javanica_, _Pterospermum javanicum_ (greatly prized for ship-building), and the upas-tree. From the economic point of view all these hundreds of trees are of less importance than _Tectona grandis_, the jati or teak, which, almost to the exclusion of all others, occupies about a third of the government forest-lands. It grows best in middle and eastern Java, preferring the comparatively dry and hot climate of the plains and lower hills to a height of about 2000 ft. above the sea, and thriving best in more or less calciferous soils. In June it sheds its leaves and begins to bud again in October. Full-grown trees reach a height of 100 to 150 ft. In 1895 teak (with a very limited quantity of other timber) was felled to the value of