118 Kimi Creek Sunday, September 6. The usual mist in early morning soon clearing and for the most part a sunny day in Camp area; some sprinkles of rain after 2:30 p.m.; strong SE wind. Upper levels of mountain under cloud, so far as I observed, except for a partial clearing up to about 8:15 a.m. Botanized on the spur of yesterday, following it to its end in the direction of the Asaro Gorge. Flora poor except for ferns, and these for the most part obtainable only in short series for the collection. Too much disturbance by man and pigs; track very muddy where the ground was yellow clay. Most interesting plants were a very big, broad-leaved Elaphoglossum and a terrestrial Hydnophytum. The latter occured in several places on the narrow ridge crest and probably had fallen from trees. A Myrmecodia and an epiphyte- type Lycopodium were found close to one of the hydnoptyhums. Van's bat net in a nearby gully in the forest, left rigged when we went upthe mountain, yielded 3 Syconycteris yesterday and another this morning. For a remote road, there was a surprising amount of motor traffic today. Two vehicles from Goroka direction, three from Lufa, not to count the noisy motor bike of young Harold Sellars. Monday, September 7. Foggy early morning; broken overcast most of day: light rain between 2-3 in afternoon. The mountain party returned about 7 o'clock last night, having camped at about 10,100 ft. (corrected) Saturday night and gone to the summit yesterday morning. Some notes on the trip by Womersley, re altitudes and records of previous visitors to the summit, are appended herewith. At least some of the early climbers of the mountain left their names on rocks of the summit, the earliest being (cf. Womersley) "1-5-41. Neilsen & Robertson, Mt. Michael, 13,000 ft." The only other party to leave an altitude record was "27-6-54. Bridges, McGrath, Thyer, Zachar, 11,800 ft." The average of 4 aneroid readings by our party (including one by Collins on his first ascent) is 12,065 ft. If, as I think, our instrument is reading about 200 ft. too high, the altitude of the main peak is somewhere around 11,900 ft. The only prominent rocks on the summit ridge are on the small summit peak. Van considers 2 grassy knolls beyond the supposed summit peak to be about as high. Womersley considers all the alpine grassland of the summit of Mt. Michael to be man induced, by fire. He bases this opinion on fire-charred forest relics and the absence of Detzneria, Papuapteris, and grassland tree-ferns from the flora. Detzneria can be regarded as a local endemic known only from Mt. Sawawaget and Mt. Wilhelm. Papuapteris is not known from as low as 12,000 ft., there are tree-ferns on the grasslands of Mt. Michael. I have about another 60 numbers from the upper parts of the mountain, collected mainly by my boy Sona. A few spp. new to the collection; mostly plants of which I had only short series from the first collection. Tuesday, September 8. Threatening morning but with some sun later; misty rain some of time. Very heavy rain between four and five in afternoon.