A catalogue of the flowering plants and ferns found growing wild in the Island of Penang
C. Curtis, Assistant Superintendent of Forests in Penang, published this comprehensive catalogue of the wild flowering plants and ferns of Penang Island in 1894, providing the first systematic floristic inventory of the settlement. The work, compiled over approximately seven years of field collection and determination, documents the island’s botanical wealth at a moment when lowland forests were being progressively replaced by cultivation and secondary succession.
Summary
Curtis’s catalogue is organized taxonomically from Ranunculaceae through the ferns and lycophytes, recording species with locality notes, brief morphological descriptions, and his own collection numbers (C. series). The preface establishes the ecological context: Penang’s hills are composed of partially decomposed granite with reddish or yellow soil, the mean temperature sits slightly above 80°F with a 14–15° range, and average annual rainfall is approximately 120 inches spread across the year with no well-defined flowering season. Curtis devotes particular attention to the problem of secondary succession, observing that once forests are felled and burnt, the original Dipterocarp and Sterculia canopy is never re-established on cleared land; instead, pioneer species such as Imperata arundinacea (“lalang”), Gleichenia spp. (“resam”), Rhodomyrtus tomentosa, Eurya acuminata, and Trema amboinense take permanent possession, rendering the land botanically uninteresting for a long period. He notes that the present site of the Botanic Garden, once planted with cloves and nutmegs, had reverted to dense secondary jungle indistinguishable from the surrounding uncleared hills, yet showed no trace of the large Dipterocarps that still dominated the adjacent summits.
The catalogue draws on the collections of earlier Penang botanists—Wallich, Maingay, Porter, and Phillips—whose specimens Curtis attempted to identify and reconcile with his own. Determinations in the earlier orders (through Tiliaceae, plus Myristicaceae and Cupuliferae) were verified by Dr. King during the preparation of the Annals and Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, lending greater confidence to those entries. Orchids and grasses were identified with the assistance of H. N. Ridley. Curtis explicitly acknowledges the catalogue’s incompleteness, noting that many plants whose distribution is so general across the Malay Islands that their Penang occurrence is not mentioned in the reference works he had access to have certainly been collected there but are omitted if he had not seen them himself.
A substantial historical appendix, appended under the initials H. N. R. (H. N. Ridley), reconstructs the history of botanical collecting in Penang from Wallich’s 1822 visit through Maingay’s collections of the 1860s. This appendix documents the fates of earlier herbaria—particularly the destruction of Jack’s drawings and manuscripts when the ship Fame was burnt at sea—and identifies numerous mislocalisations in the Flora of British India where plants collected in Singapore, Sumatra, or the further islands were erroneously attributed to Penang.
Key Findings
- The mean temperature of Penang Island is recorded as slightly above 80°F with a diurnal range of 14–15°, and the average rainfall for the five years preceding publication was 120 inches (p. 67).
- Curtis identifies Shorea utilis King (“Damar laut No. satu”) as “undoubtedly the best timber in the island,” noting it was “too much in demand to be common” (p. 16).
- Dipterocarpus Skinnerii King, named in honour of the Resident Councillor of Penang, is described as “an exceedingly rare species” with only a single tree observed at 1,500 feet on West Hill (p. 15).
- The Ayer Hitam Botanic Garden, established in 1822 under George Porter’s charge, was sold by Governor Murchison in 1834 for 1,250 rupees (p. 100).
- William Jack’s entire collection of over two thousand drawings and all his manuscripts were destroyed when the ship Fame was burnt at sea en route to England (p. 99).
- Curtis records that Begonia Evansiana, described from Penang in Andrews’ Botanist’s Repository (1808), “has never been met with here and could hardly have been overlooked,” concluding it is a Chinese plant misattributed to the island (p. 40).
Conclusion
Curtis’s catalogue stands as the foundational floristic reference for Penang Island, documenting the island’s plant diversity at the threshold of extensive lowland deforestation. Its enduring value lies not only in the species lists but in Curtis’s acute observations on secondary succession and the irreversibility of forest clearance, which he presents as a direct threat to the persistence of the original flora. The work explicitly positions itself as a provisional instrument—useful “until material is available for a better”—acknowledging both the losses already incurred and the many species yet to be discovered.
Context
- Curtis held the colonial administrative post of Assistant Superintendent of Forests, Penang, and the catalogue reflects the dual botanical-forestry concerns of the Straits Settlements service, with particular emphasis on timber species and their local names.
- The historical appendix by H. N. Ridley draws on the Wallichian correspondence at Calcutta (examined by Dr. Prain) and the records of the East India Company’s Herbarium, whose study set was preserved at the Linnean Society, London.