Flora and Vegetation of Bali Indonesia: An Illustrated Field Guide

By Edgar Heim

This well illustrated field guide describes about 500 of the most common and eye-catching plants growing on Bali and the adjacent Java, most of them are illustrated with pictures. It is a comprehensive and valuable field guide for tourists and locals.
The first part of the book describes the vegetation of Bali. It gives an overview of the Balinese ecosystems. Monsoon forests in the south, moist rainforests in the mountains and dry deciduous forests on the northern slopes generate patterns of unique ecosystems all over the island.
The second part of the book is dedicated to the plant species living on Bali. With 400 pictures and their accurate descriptions, the reader should be able to recognize the different species in its habitat. Additionally the book provides information about the traditional und the commercial use of the described plants and characterizes their ecological behavior.
The field guide is an essential travel companion for all who love nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9783735706874

Edgar Heim

Edgar Heim was born in Lima, Peru. He studied food technology in Switzerland and has practiced that profession for more than 30 years, first as a manager in industrial companies, then as a lecturer. Since his youth, he has been fascinated by nature, biodiversity, and ecology. Botany and traveling are his passions. Over the years he has collected information about vegetation and plants from all over the world and systematically compiled it in a database.

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Index

Introduction

Unfortunately many developing countries do not have any literature about the flora and their biodiversity. Over the years I have collected a large amount of information about the vegetation around the world and accumulated more than 40'000 pictures of plants from different countries. For my own sake I compiled my personal field guides for my journeys and got a lot of compliments and encourragement while travelling. So I decided to publish my personal field guides. One of them is the Flora and Vegetation of Bali indonesia, another one is the Flora of Arequipa, Peru, several others are in progress. I am convinced that knowledge of plants enhances environmental care. Only knowing people will love and care about the species living in their neighborhood. So I hope to enhance environmental care with this booklet and contribute to global biodiversity conservation.

This well illustrated field guide describes about 500 of the most common and eyecatching plants growing on Bali and the adjacent Java, most of them are illustrated with pictures. It is a comprehensive and valuable field guide for tourists and locals.

The first part of the book describes the vegetation of Bali. It gives an overview of the Balinese ecosystems. Monsoon forests in the south, moist rainforests in the mountains and dry deciduous forests on the northern slopes generate patterns of unique ecosystems all over the island.

The second part of the book is dedicated to the plant species living on Bali. With 400 pictures and their accurate descriptions, the reader should be able to recognize the different species in its habitat. Additionally the book provides information about the traditional und the commercial use of the described plants and characterizes their ecological behavior.

The field guide is an essential travel companion for all who love nature.

Please let me know if you notice a misidentified species or some other error in this book!

Edgar Heim

[e-mail]

Bali and its Vegetation

Geography of Bali

The island Bali is a province of Indonesia located between longitude 8°04’ and 8°51’ S and latitude 114° 26’ and 115°43’ E. In the west, it borders to Java and in the east to Lombok.

Bali covers an area of 5,780 km² and the highest elevation is the volcano Mount Agung, attaining an elevation of 3,148 m. According to the 2010 census 3,890,757 people lived on Bali, for 2014 the population is estimated to be 4,225,000. 89 % belong to the ethnic group of Balinese, 7 % are Javanese (Wikipedia, 2014). With 730 people per km², Bali is one of the most densely populated regions of the world.

The economy is mainly based on tourism (c. 80 % of GDP) and agriculture (biggest employer) (Wikipedia, 2014). Tourism suffered significantly because of the terrorist bombings 2002 and 2005. Meanwhile it recovered and in 2010, more than 2.5 million tourists visited Bali. Tourism concentrates on the south of the Island, in Kuta and surroundings.

Geology of Bali

Its active volcanoes characterize Bali and the adjacent Java. Both Islands were formed because of the subduction and remelting of the Australian-Indian Ocean tectonic plate beneath the Eurasian plate at the Java trench. This process triggered the rising of volcanoes, which formed Java 24 million years ago and Bali 3 million ago (Morrison, 2014).

Therefore, the surface geology of Bali consists of volcanic deposits, alluvial sediments and uplifted coral limestone. This process is still ongoing; the volcanoes on Bali and Java are among the most active in the world. Gunung Agung for instance erupted in 1963, caused severe damage, and killed more than 1500 people. The last eruption of Mount Batur dates back to 1968, when the lava field near Kintamani was formed.

Phytogeography of Bali

During previous ice ages, the sea levels were much lower and Java (and Bali) was connected to Sumatra, Borneo and the Asian mainland (Sathiamurthy & Voris, 2006). This landmass is called Sunda and laid adjacent to Sahul, one part of the Australian-Indian tectonic plate, consisting then of modern Australia and New Guinea. Sunda belonged to the super continent of Laurasia; Sahul was part of former Gondwana. Both super continents were separated for at least 180-200 million years. During this long time species, evolution went different ways on both super continents, creating a continent specific flora and fauna. In Sunda the forests consists mainly of Dipterocarpus (Dipterocarpaceae), in Sahul dominate different species of Myrthaceae (Syzigium, Eucalyptus, etc.). Both biogeographic regions were connected by stepping stones, small islands between the two landmasses. On these islands, the species from both continents gradually mixed up, forming a transition gradient from west to east. Depending on the viewpoint, the biogeographic boundary between the two former landmasses is defined slightly different. Alfred Russel Wallace defined the Wallace Line, mainly based on the distribution of birds. Max Wilhelm Carl Weber’s Weber Line rest on the distribution of the mammalian fauna and Richard Lydekker set his line according to fossil mammals, reptiles and birds.

Fig. 1: Map showing the Sunda and Sahul landmass during the last glacial period, when the sea level was 110 m lower than today (Dörrbecker, 2014). The three boundary lines base on different taxa-focus.

Bali is located in the Paleotropical floristic kingdom and therein is part of the Malesian floristic region. Takhtajan (1986) divides the Malesian region in three subregions and 11 provinces. Bali is part of the Malesian subregion and the South Malesian province. Based on the biome classification of Walter & Breckle (1999), the South Malesian province belongs to the zonobiome I, the tropical rain forest.

Climate and Vegetation

Bali is located in the tropical rain belt, so the island’s climate is characterized by constant temperature and seasonal variations in precipitation.

Fig. 2: Climate graphs of some locations on Bali. The average daily temperature is constant and rainfall shows marked seasonal differences.

Table 1: Climate data from several regions of Bali.

The climate of Bali is governed by the oscillations of air masses within the inter-tropical convergence zone. The variation in air and sea temperature through the year is small. In Denpasar, e.g. the lowest average daily temperature with 25.6°C in July and the highest with 27.2°C in December differ less than 2°C.

Rainfall shows marked seasonal differences, though more in the north than in the south. This seasonality is due to the dry southeast trade or monsoon winds, blowing from Australia in the middle of the year. The winds are forced up by the mountains so that the air cools down and the remaining humidity forms clouds and rains out. Falling down the northern slopes, the winds warm up again and get dryer than before. Therefore, the northern part of Bali experiences more than eight dry months, in the southern part the dry season lasts 5 months. The wettest places are the mountains in Central Bali, where it rains throughout the year and the annual rainfall reaches 4000 mm (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja, & Afiff, 1997). Climatic data from Bali are shown in Fig. 2 and Table 1.

A warm pool of water oscillates in an irregular manner between Indonesia and the eastern Pacific. The warm phase of this so-called El Niño event results in extended dry seasons and droughts (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja, & Afiff, 1997).

Following the Köppe-Geiger climate classification system (McKnight & Hess, 2000) the climate and vegetation of Bali can be divided in three types:

The tropical rainforest climate (Köppen-Geiger climate Af) in the center of the island, naturally covered by dense stands of evergreen and semi-evergreen rain forests.

The tropical monsoon climate (Köppen-Geiger climate Am) in the lowlands of the island, naturally covered by moist and dry deciduous forests.

The savanna climate (Köppen-Geiger climate Aw) in the driest spots in the north and northeast of the island, naturally covered by grassland, dry scrubland and palm groves. The corresponding vegetation types are described as follows.

The lowland rain forests have clothed much of the central slopes of Bali up to an altitude of 1200 m. During the last century, these forests were almost entirely cleared by the fast growing population and transformed into settlements, orchards or agriculture land. Nowadays, virgin lowland rain forests still grow in some isolated stands in Java. In Bali remain only a few very small patches, intensively disturbed by human activities. The evergreen lowland rain forests are dominated by Dipterocarpus sp. (Dipterocarpaceae) and contain Artocarpus elasticus (Moraceae), Dysoxylum caulostachyum (Meliaceae), Lansium domesticum (Meliaceae) and Planchonia valida (Lecythidaceae) (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja, & Afiff, 1997).

Above 1200 m, montane species appear gradually and form the montane rain forest. It is characterized by abundant fern growth, e.g. tree ferns like Cyathea latebrosa (Cyatheaceae) or Dicksonia blumei (Dicksoniaceae) and distinct trees like Casuarina junghuhniana (Casuarinaceae), Altingia excelsa (Altingiaceae) and Dacrycarpus imbricarpus (Podocarpaceae).

Moist deciduous forests are simple, lightly closed forests and grow up to 1200 m altitude. They get 1,500-4,000 mm of rainfall annually, with a four- to six-month dry season. Common lowland deciduous trees in eastern Java and Bali are Homalium bhamoense (Salicaceae), Albizia lebbekoides, Acacia leucophloea, A. tomentosa, Bauhinia malabarica, Cassia fistula (all Fabaceae), Dillenia pentagyna, Tetrameles nudiflora (Tetramelaceae), Ailanthus integrifolia (Simaroubaceae), and Phyllanthus emblica (Phyllanthaceae). Many herbaceous plants are confined to the deciduous forests (Whitten et al. 1996).

In areas with dry seasons lasting more than six months grow dry deciduous forests, characterized by Borassus flabellifer (Arecaceae), a large palm and several other dry resistant. In Bali this vegetation type is common on the northern coast, e.g. on the hills at Amed in the east or the northern part of Bali Barat National Park. Disturbance by domestic vertebrate pressure and firewood gathering favors thorny species like Ziziphus jujuba (Rhamnaceae) or Opuntia elatior (Cactaceae), both introduced species.

Apart from these zonal vegetation types, specific environmental factors form azonal vegetation, like the mangrove forests. These evergreen forests are very well adapted to saline conditions and grow in the tidal zone of the coast. Due to stable climatic conditions during the last 40 million years, the southeastern Asiatic mangroves could evolve constantly on site.

The first evidence of Homo sapiens in Bali dates back to 40’000 BCE (before Common Era). Recent archeological research (Indriati, et al., 2011) shows that Homo erectus, the Java Man, who lived in southeastern Asia at least 1.5 million years ago, went extinct long before that time. Thus, Homo erectus probably did not share habitats with modern humans. The Forest Man fixed in several Indonesian mythologies might have been Homo floresiensis, the Flores Man, who lived isolated on Flores and went extinct 17,000 years BCE.

Therefore, the vegetation of Bali is strongly influenced by human activity. Due to the high population density, nearly every little patch is used for farming, rice growing or animal husbandry.

Plant Species

Flora

On Java were recorded a total number of 6500 vascular plant species (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja, & Afiff, 1997). For Bali there is no information about the number of living species. It may be assumed that the total number is significantly smaller, because of the theory of island biogeography (MacArthur & Wilson, 1967). Java is more than 20 times larger than Bali. As the climate and the geographic location of the two islands are very similar, theoretically the number of plant species living on Bali would be between 40 and 50% of the number living on Java. Therefore the number of vascular plant species on Bali may be estimated to be around 3000 and 3500.

On Java, 68% of the species are native vascular plants, 23% are cultivated introduced plants and 9% are allien and naturalized plants (Steenis & Schippers-Lammertse, 1965). It may be assumed that the situation for Bali is similar.

Java and Bali is poor in endemic species. There are at least 325 endemic species, but no endemic genera on both islands. This may be to the turbulent volcanic history of the islands which simply has not given time fo higher levels of endemism to develop (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja, & Afiff, 1997).

Taxonomy and Nomenclature

During the last decade, much research was done on phylogenetic all over the world. Comparing the genetic material of different species produces an objective evidence of relationship. Therefore, the taxonomic system has been adapted continuously. In the plant kingdom, several families were rearranged and genera were transferred to other families. Some classification criteria were abolished, e.g. the differentiation between monocots and dicots. In the future new findings will improve the knowledge of evolution and lead to more modifications in taxonomy. Probably this field guide will already be outdated by the time it is published.

Latest research was included in this book as good as possible. The scientific names are strictly applied as proposed in The Plant List (Version 1.1, 2014). Generally, synonyms were not mentioned in this plant guide except for species that are well known under the old scientific name.

The English common names were found on the internet.

Information about the species

The description of the species, the geographical distribution, the ecological parameters and further information are mainly based on the Flora of China (Missouri Botanical Garden, 2014), Useful tropical plants (Fern, 2014), Ferns of Bali (Adjie & Lestari, 2011), Encyclopedia of Life (EOL, 2003 onwards) The Flora Malesiana (van Steenis & Holttum, 1959), the GRIN database (USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program, 2014) and Flowers of India (Thingnam & Tabish, 2005 - 2014). Further were consulted the Nationaal Herbarium Holland (Whitmore, Coode, & Hoffmann, 2014), the Bali Botanical Garden (2014), Invasive Species Compendium (ISSG, 2014), Handbook of Mangroves in Indonesia (Kitamura, Anwar, Chaniago, & Baba, 1997 (2004)), Trees commonly cultivated in Southeast Asia (Jensen, 1999), Forest Ferns (Forest Ferns, 2014), Palmen (Jones, 1994), Ferns of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia (Lindsay & Middleton, 2012 onwards), The DNA of Singapore (Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, 2014), Flora Indonesiana (Setyo Lestari & Adjie, 2011), Aroids of Bali (Kurniawan & Sri Asih, 2014), Plants of Southeast Asia (Slick, 2009 onwards), Cyathea of Java (Wardani, 2014), Digital Flora of the Philippines (Pelser, Barcelona, & Nickrent, 2011 onwards), Fotos Biodiversitas Indonesia (FOBI, 2009-20014), Plants Database (USDA, 2014), Western Australian Flora (Western Australian Herbarium, 1998-, Release 2.8.25) and Australian Rainforest Plants" (Zich & West, 2010).

If there were contradictory information between the own records and/or the references, clarification was sought by consulting further literature.

Use of Plants

The human use of the described plants is based on the database Plants for a Future (1996-2014) and „Useful tropical plants" (Fern, 2014). Moreover were integrated available publications on pharmacological and chemical analysis of plants found on the World Wide Web. There is plenty of this kind of literature references but a broad systematic survey was not done. The incorporated papers were included in the reference list but are not always explicitly cited in the text.

Please notice that the author cannot take any responsibility for any adverse effects caused by the use of plants. Always get first the advice from a professional before using a plant for food or medicinally.

Pictures

The author himself took all photographs.

Abbreviations

Ecology:

not native, introduced

H2O water plant

N nitrophilous plant

Ca calcareous plant

NaCl halophilous plant

Human use:

edible

medicinal plant

poisonous

fodder

ornamental

fuel

industrial and technical use

The author cannot take any responsibility for any adverse effects caused by the use of plants. Always