TROPICAL LOWLAND EVERGREEN FOREST

1. TROPICAL LOWLAND EVERGREEN FOREST

2. Occurrence: • Perhumid Lowland Climate with absent water stress (no reguler annual dry season) • ± 1200 m above mean sea level an dry land site • Distributed in Eastern tropics, western Amazonia and Facific coast of South America, Africa (near coast of West Africa; between Guinea and Liberia; between Cameroon and Gabon)

3. Morphological Characteristics • Large number of species. • Lofty dense. • Evergreen forest 45 m or more tall. • 2-3 or more canopy tree layers (conventionally having three tree layers) with the top layers of individual or grouped giant emergent trees, over a main stratum of 24-36 m, and with smaller, shade-dwelling trees below that. • Ground vegetation is often sparse mainly of small trees, where herbs are patchy.

4. Some of biggest trees have clear bole of 30 m and 4.5 m in girth, maybe decidious or semi decidious. Boles are almost cylindrical. • Buttresses, cauliflory/ramiflory are common feature. • Leaf = pinnate, leafblade of mesophyll size. • Big woody climbers, mostly free hanging are abundant. • Shade and sun epiphytes are occasional to frequent. • Bryophytes are rare.

5. MONTANE RAIN FOREST • Occurrence: • Eastern Tropic • Less extensive in Africa (occur in Cameroon and Zaire river basin)

6. Forest formation Forest formation • Montain Rain Forest Zones in Malaya Montane ericaceous Upper montane Oak-laurel Lower montane Upper dipterocarp Lowland Hill dipterocarp Lowland dipterocarp

8. Morphological Characteristics of Mountain Rain Forest (Whitemore, 1990)

9. Batas-batas orografik dari flora pegunungan Malesia (Van Stenis, 1972)

11. Affected by the change of climate at different altitude. • Morphological Characteristic • At low to medium altitude • Rainfall increase • More luxuriant vegetation • Temperature decrease with increasing altitude. • Above the medium altitude • Height and diameter of trees decrease • Number of species decrease

12. Three tree canopy layer change become to two canopy layer • Luxuriant epiphytes (mainly mosses and liverworths) • Trunks and branches are covered by mosses and liverworths • Few woody vine SUBMONTANE FOREST

13. Alpine Forest or Mossy Forest (above the sub-montane forest) or True Montane Forest • Single storey of twisted trees of massive growth and rich branching. • Leaves are smaller than those of rain forest. • Trunks and branches are covered with thick mat mosses and liverworths. • A number of ferns and flowering plants grow among liverworths and mosses. • More light penetrates and ground vegetation is heavier.

14. Numerious of flowering trees, shrubs and epiphytes. • Stranglers are absent. • Small climbers may be found near the upper limits of the forest. • Above the Alpine Forest (zone of dwarf shrub, followed by Alpine Meadow or Alpine Savanna with short and matted plant). Above those zones is NIVAL ZONE (SALJU).

15. HEAT FOREST • Heat Forest is called HUTAN KERANGAS in Bahasa Indonesia/Melayu and campina/campinarana/caatinga Amazonica/campina repustre in Brazil. • Occurrance: • Rio Negro & Rio Orinoco in South America • Kalimantan, Serawak, Brunei in Borneo • Coastal sand in Gabon, Cameroon and Ivory Coast in Africa

16. Habitat: • Soil: siliceous sand (tanah pasir kuarsa/silikat), either coastal alluvium or weathered sandstones, these become podzolized. • Acidic (pH<4) • Low sesquioxide • Coarse texture, freely draining • Stream draining heat forest is black/tea-colored due to precense of organic colloids, acid with low cation content.

17. Morphological Characteristics • Storey formed by large number of saplings and small poles, often difficult to penetrate. • Canopy is low, uniform and usually densely closed. • Big woody climbers are rare. • Epihytes are common. • Mycrophyte and insectivetons plants may be abundant, i.e. Nepenthes (Kantong semar)