ECONOMIC PLANTS OF PORTO RICO. 
By O. F. Cook and (+. N. Couiins. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Very few tropical countries have been provided with satisfactory 
manuals of botany by means of which the resident or the traveler 
ean identify the plants and secure access to information regarding 
their uses and other noteworthy characteristics. 
There is, as vet, no manual of the botany of Porto Rico nor any 
handbook of tropical cultivated plants which can be recommended to 
those who seek an introduction to the indigenous flora of the Island 
and the economic species grown for food, ornament, and other pur- 
poses, or escaped and intermingled with the native vegetation, lor 
tunately, however, clues to the identity of a large proportion of the 
plants of Porto Rico are readily obtainable through the medium of 
the common names. The natives of Porto Rico have been noted by 
many travelers as having a larger series of popular names and as 
using them with more precision than the inhabitants of other parts of 
the American tropies. Certain it is that many species have received 
separate names in Porto Rico which in Cuba are not distinguished 
except by botanists. This fact is to be connected, perhaps, with the 
existence of a large rural population, which has preserved many 
names obtained from their Indian ancestors and the Spanish settlers 
with whom these amalgamated. The names are in many eases entirely 
local, not known outside the island, and quite different from those 
applied in Mexico and Cuba. It is accordingly believed that a list of 
Porto Rican names of economic plants, although necessarily imperfect, 
would be of special convenience at the present juncture when the 
native population is beginning the study of English and while 
numerous Americans are struggling to comprehend the language, 
products, and vegetation of a new and interesting country. 
Some plants have several common nanes which may be confined to 
different districts, and in some cases the same names are applied to 
different plants in different places. Of course this popular knowledge 
lacks scientific accuracy and frequently breaks down when similar 
species are in question, The identification of single individuals 
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