Grasses and sedges of Borneo
H. N. Ridley, Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, published this preliminary taxonomic checklist of Bornean grasses and sedges in 1906, drawing on the herbarium collections of Bishop Hose, Miss Hose, Dr. Haviland, and his own field work in Sarawak and Sandakan. The article serves as an early floristic inventory of two large families—Gramineae and Cyperaceae—across the island, acknowledging that the greater part of Borneo remained botanically unexplored at the time.
Summary
Ridley’s list is compiled from multiple collector sources spanning Sarawak, British North Borneo (Sandakan, Kudat, Gaya Island), Labuan, Brunei, and the highlands of Kinabalu. He explicitly frames the work as provisional, noting that the glumaceous plants of several large collections—including those of Beccari in Sarawak, Creagh in Sandakan, and Motley and Barber in various parts of the island—had not yet been fully worked out. The best-known region is Sarawak, where Bishop Hose, Miss Hose, Dr. Haviland, and Ridley himself had all collected, though Haviland’s expertise lay primarily in trees and shrubs rather than herbaceous plants.
The article is organised taxonomically by family and genus, with each species entry providing locality data, collector attributions, and occasional morphological or ecological notes. Ridley identifies several species as cultivated (rice, maize, pearl millet, job’s tears, and two Andropogon species), distinguishing them from wild populations. A notable feature is the inclusion of four new species described in the course of this work—Hypolytrum costato-nux and Thoracostachyum Ridleyi (both named by C. B. Clarke), and Mapania radians and M. debilis (Clarke n. sp.)—each accompanied by a Latin diagnosis and a brief English description. The Kinabalu highland flora is represented by a small but distinctive assemblage collected by Haviland at 13,000 feet, including Agrostis canina var. Borneensis, Deycuxia epileuca, and Deschampsia flexuosa var. ligulata.
Ridley also flags several biogeographically interesting records: Mapania zeylanica, which Clarke identifies as otherwise confined to Ceylon yet collected at Matang and Banjermassin; and Carex Dietrichiae, which Clarke reports as frequent in Malaya and north-east Australia but which Ridley had never encountered from the Malay Peninsula himself.
Key Findings
- The checklist enumerates approximately 120 species across two families (Gramineae and Cyperaceae), with localities spanning Sarawak, Sandakan, Labuan, Brunei, and Kinabalu (pp. 215–228).
- Four new species are formally described: Hypolytrum costato-nux Clarke, Thoracostachyum Ridleyi Clarke, Mapania radians Clarke, and M. debilis Clarke, all from Sarawak (pp. 225–227).
- Kinabalu highland specimens were collected by Haviland at 13,000 feet altitude, yielding Agrostis canina var. Borneensis, Deycuxia epileuca, and Deschampsia flexuosa var. ligulata (p. 220).
- Mapania zeylanica is recorded from Matang and Banjermassin, with Clarke noting it is otherwise a plant confined to Ceylon (p. 227).
- Cultivated species explicitly identified include Oryza sativa, Zea mays, Pennisetum italicum, Coix Lachryma Jobi, Andropogon squarrosus, and A. schoenanthus (pp. 218–219).
- Dinochloa Tjankorreh is described as “a very elegant climbing bamboo” collected abundantly at the foot of Matang and near Kuching (p. 221).
Conclusion
Ridley presents this list as a necessary but incomplete foundation for the grass and sedge flora of Borneo, emphasising that the island’s botanical knowledge was still in its infancy and that the list would be “very much enlarged as the country opens up.” The work’s lasting value lies in its aggregation of scattered collector data into a single reference point and in the description of four new species, two of which (T. Ridleyi and M. radians) are noted as particularly elegant or abundant in their native habitats.
Context
- Ridley held the position of Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens and was the pre-eminent colonial-era botanist working across the Straits Settlements and Borneo; this checklist reflects the administrative and scientific infrastructure of the colonial botanical establishment.
- The article draws on the herbarium collections held at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which served as the central repository for botanical specimens from the region during this period.