Java is perhaps the most fertile of the Sunda Islands. Immense forests extend over its plains, and climb up its mountain-slopes to an elevation of upwards of 6500 feet. The damp localities are peopled with Clusiaceæ, and with other trees of thick soft trunks and branches. Mangroves and Avicennias thrive upon the littoral. The latter are specially noticeable on account of their roots, which climb to a great distance above the muddy soil, and throw off a number of suckers, not unlike gigantic water-pipes (_asperges_). Among the palms most abundant at Java, I confine myself to naming the Borrassus, the Corypha, and the Areca. The Vaquois (a species of _Pandanus_), which in stature and appearance resemble the palms, are also widely diffused in that rich and fertile island. In the forests of its interior swarm such splendid Ferns as the _Niphobolus pubescens_, and such graceful Archids as the _Aerides_ _suaveolens_, with its far-shooting fronds and flowers, and the _Phalænopsis amabilis_. There, too, the traveller pauses before the _Cycas circinnalis_, whose trunk, upright and cylindrical as a Grecian column, is surmounted by a crest of feathery leaves, each six to seven feet in length, stiff, and cut into numerous strips, somewhat like our native bracken; or he refreshes himself with the pure liquid which the winding _Nepenthes distillatoria_, or Pitcher plant, collects in its horn-shaped leaves, as a constant source of nutriment for its active life; or, finally, he gazes wonderingly at the _Scindapsus pertusus_, an epiphytous plant, whose cartilaginous leaves are perforated with an infinity of small circular holes, and which twines itself round the tallest forest-trees in an embrace as close as love's! The forest-flora of the Moluccas differs but little from that of the Sunda Islands. It presents, however, a few plants particularly calculated to excite our interest. Thus, at Amboyna, the Sago-Palms, with other trees of the same family, accumulate in immense woods, spreading over hundreds of acres. Everybody knows that the pith of this palm is a white farinaceous substance, called _sago_, which not only enters largely into the daily food of the natives, but forms an important item in the European bill of fare, at least for children and invalids. Amboyna, moreover, is the classic land of spices. The air is thick with "Sabæan odours." Every breeze comes laden with perfumes. The Nutmeg (_Myristica aromatica_), the Clove (_Caryophyllus aromaticus_), and the Pepper-plants grow there in a wild state.