246 The Philippine Journal of Science me 



and on the Rubiaceae are not available for publication at the 

 present time. All the material of the Orchidaceae is in the hands 

 of Doctor J. J. Smith, and of the Rubiaceae is in the hands of 

 Dr. Th. Valeton for study. 



In the present enumeration the vast majority of the species 

 included are those already described by the other authors. The 

 percentage of novelties in the collection is small, as was to be 

 expected from a small island that has been visited by so many 

 botanists as Amboina, for Amboina is classical ground in Ma- 

 layan botany. The work of most botanists and collectors in 

 Amboina, however, has been confined for the most part to 

 visits of from a few days to a few weeks, and it is apparent 

 that a considerable amount of Amboinan botanical material still 

 remains in various herbaria unidentified. A few new species 

 have been proposed; namely, about twenty-three by myself in 

 various groups, two species of Piper by M. C. de Candolle, and 

 three species of lichens by Mr. G. K. Merrill. The collection 

 has supplied material by which the status of several of Rox- 

 burgh's species, based on material originating in Amboina or in 

 the Moluccas, and which were very imperfectly described, can 

 definitely be determined, quite apart from the value of the 

 specimens placed in the other series, Plantae Rumphianae Am- 

 boinenses, in determining the status of the very numerous spe- 

 cies based on Rumphius's descriptions and figures. 



Like many other parts of the Malay Archipelago, the vegeta- 

 tion of Amboina has been much changed since the time that 

 Rumphius wrote his Herbarium Amboinense. It is evident that 

 the forests were then much more extensive than they are to-day. 

 As the population has increased, the virgin forest has been de- 

 stroyed to make way for cultivated lands, and it is very probable 

 that in Amboina, as certainly in the more densely populated 

 Island of Java, species more or less common in Rumphius's time, 

 have since been exterminated or at least have become very rare 

 and local. The virgin forest supports a type of vegetation en- 

 tirely different from that of the settled areas and the second- 

 growth forests, and as a rule, this type of forest, when once 

 destroyed in the Malayan region, is never replaced by the same 

 type of vegetation, or if replaced, the original species grow again 

 only after the lapse of many years. 



As the present contribution is by no means a study of the 

 flora of Amboina as a whole, it is hardly the place to discuss the 

 characteristics or the relationships of the flora. It is very prob- 

 able that eventually the island will present a very small endemic 



