A BOTANICAL EXCURSION TO NORTH. KANAKA 16 May, 1954 Sunday. Last night was peaceful in spite of large numbers of very hungry-mosquitoes ; we were too tired to notice such a small thing as the mos-quitoes. In the early morning went out near the forest bungalow and had the first glimpse of the forest in North Kanara. A large tree near the bun-galow had all its branches covered with an interesting species of Drynaria, a climbing fern with mighty rope-like stems ; the abundance of mosses showed that we were in a tropical moist forest. We collected two inter-esting orchids in flower, and two species of Loranthus that were being seen by me for the first time. Yesterday along the road in the twilight we saw a number of plants of Mussaenda frondosa in flower, with their ghostly white calyx segments ; this morning noticed another large shrub of the same plant with much larger white calyx than what one sees nearer Bombay. The ground under the forest trees was covered with masses of Elephantopus and Mimosa pudica, the latter in plenty of flowers. For the first time we were struck with the large number of epiphytes in this type of forest. Heptapleurum venulosum is very abundant near the bungalow, in bud and flower or fruit ; very large masses cover more than half of a large Ficus near the road that leads to the bungalow ; the plant is remarkably similar to the European Ivy in its flowers and fruits. In the open ground in the middle of the compound noticed a small species of Curcuma with just one flower per plant; the corolla is pure white with a broad yellow stripe in the middle of the lip. Santalum album is in full bloom near the house; they are small trees about 25-30 ft. high, the petals of the flowers being of a dark purple brown, very similar in colour to Iphigenia indica seen in more northern parts. At noon the public bus company called at our place to pick us up and take us to Jog ; I was informed that such a company is one of the few still in private hands, and in consequence they could oblige us by picking us up from our house, a thing the State Transport would not be allowed to do. The way from Sirsi to Siddapur and Jog is very impressive ; majestic trees on either side of the road forming dense forests, though there are already many patches from which the forest has been locally removed. Hopea is a glorious sight, very large trees with crimson red fruits, and masses of them ; the little Curcuma seen at Sirsi is very com-mon and in places very abundant along the road, generally in the under-growth ; the flowers vary from pure white to fleshy pink, and their number from one to about seven per plant, no leaves seen. Just after milestone No. 11 from Sirsi, we came upon a plantation of Areca catechu ; the trees composing the plantation are very tall and slender, placed rather closely, with occasionally bananas, Piper betle etc., cultivated in the ground below Areca. On the trees we noticed a number of epiphytes and not a few parasites. The stems of Areca trees are whitish, and the sight of the plantation is very impressive. The road is good all along except for about a quarter of a mile near the areca plantations ; at that spot it was very bad. After a short stop at Siddapur for tea and provisions, we went up to Jog, where we reached at about 5 p.m. From the moment of landing from the bus one is nearly deafened by the noise of the falls. The bungalow, belonging to the P.W.D., Bombay State, is on a hill overlooking the falls; just across the