Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines and the Moluccas, and the uncultivated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest countries, except a few small and unimportant tracts, due perhaps, in some cases, to ancient cultivation or accidental fires.

To this, however, there is one important exception in the island of Timor and all the smaller islands around it, in which there is absolutely no forest such as exists in the other islands, and this character extends in a lesser degree to Flores, Sumbawa, Lombock, and Bali.
In Timor the most common trees are Eucalypti of several species, also characteristic of Australia, with sandalwood, acacia, and other sorts in less abundance.

These are scattered over the country more or less thickly, but, never so as to deserve the name of a forest.

Coarse and scanty grasses grow beneath them on the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in the moister localities.

In the islands between Timor and Java there is often a more thickly wooded country abounding in thorny and prickly trees.