Some plants collected on Mr. Moulton’s expedition to Batu Lawi
H.N. Ridley, Curator of the Sarawak Museum, published this brief botanical note in 1912 to document the plant specimens gathered during J.C. Moulton’s 1911 expedition to Mount Batu Lawi in the upper Limbang district of Sarawak. The article serves as a companion to Moulton’s lengthy narrative account of the same journey, which appears elsewhere in the same volume of the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Summary
Ridley’s contribution is a concise taxonomic list of the plants collected by the expedition party during their ascent to and sojourn on Mount Batu Lawi, a peak in the border mountains of Brunei that had never before been reached by a European. The expedition, led by Moulton in May–June 1911, traversed the upper Limbang and Madihit rivers before proceeding overland through the Madihit valley to the mountain itself, reaching an altitude of approximately 5,660 feet on the southern end of Batu Lawi (p. 40). The collecting was necessarily hurried and limited by the expedition’s short supply of provisions, the dense and difficult terrain, and the persistent wet weather that characterised the mountain region (pp. 56–57).
Ridley’s note identifies the species obtained, noting which are new to science or new to the flora of Sarawak, and provides brief ecological or distributional remarks where relevant. The article reflects the standard practice of the Sarawak Museum at the time, whereby the Curator would publish the botanical results of field expeditions conducted by others, often with the assistance of museum collectors who accompanied the party. The expedition’s overall collecting yield was described by Moulton as “regrettably small” yet “surprisingly rich in new and rare species,” a characterisation that Ridley’s list substantiates (p. 56).
Key Findings
- The expedition reached the southern end of Mount Batu Lawi at an altitude of 5,660 feet on 29 May 1911, the first recorded European ascent of the mountain (p. 40).
- The base of Batu Lawi stands approximately 3,500 feet above sea level, with the mountain rising a further 2,700 feet above that base (p. 42).
- The collecting party spent only about four days in the immediate vicinity of the mountain (29 May – 1 June 1911), during which persistent cloud and rain severely limited both collecting and observation (pp. 39–41).
- The expedition’s total duration from Limbang to Claudetown was 40 days, of which 31 were spent in actual travelling; the party slept two consecutive nights in the same place on only five occasions (p. 56).
- The Madihit district between Penribut’s house (altitude 2,100 ft.) and Batu Lawi was entirely uninhabited; the party was away 13 days without encountering any native settlement (p. 56).
- The flora of the upper Madihit and Batu Lawi region was noted to be of a distinctly different character from that of the lower river, with the mountain slopes supporting low-growing gnarled shrubs covered in thick moss over limestone, in contrast to the tall virgin jungle of the lower elevations (p. 39).
Conclusion
Ridley’s note confirms that the upper reaches of the Limbang–Madihit watershed, and particularly the slopes of Batu Lawi, constitute a botanically distinct and previously undocumented region of Sarawak. The presence of new and rare species in such a small collection underscores the high degree of endemism and the limited prior knowledge of the flora in this mountainous border area, reinforcing the case for further botanical exploration of the region.
Context
- The article draws on field specimens deposited in the Sarawak Museum collection, gathered by Moulton and his party of Dayak, Tabun, Murut, and Kalabit collectors during the 1911 expedition.
- This note represents the standard collaborative model of Sarawak Museum fieldwork in the early twentieth century, in which administrative or military officers conducted expeditions and the museum’s scientific staff published the resulting collections.