THE PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, C. BOTANY. 
Vol. IX, No. 1, February, 1914. 
AN ENUMERATION OF THE PLANTS OF GUAM — 
By E. D. MERRILL * 
(From the Botanical Section of the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of 
Science, Manila, P. I.) 
In the year 1905 Mr. W. E. Safford published his comprehen- 
sive and valuable work entitled “The Useful Plants of Guam” ? 
in which is discussed the island and its characteristics, geo- 
graphic position, geology, meteorology, agriculture, vegetation, 
types of plant formations, historical notes dealing with the 
discovery of the island, and a lengthy discussion of its aboriginal 
and modern inhabitants. It is, hence, unnecessary to consider 
any of these matters in detail here except merely to state that 
Guam is the largest island of the Marianne group which extends 
from 20° 30’ N to 18° 14’ N, and from 143° 46’ E to 146° 31’ 
E; that it is of volcanic origin; that its length is about 46 kilo- 
meters, its width from 11 to 14 kilometers in the wider parts, 
and about 7 kilometers in the central portion; and that its present 
population is about 10,000 inhabitants. It is about 1,900 kilo- 
meters east of the Philippines. 
The town of Agajia, the largest settlement on the island, 
as located by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, is 
18° 28’ 30” N, 144° 45’ E. The highest point on the island is 
Jumullong Manglo, in the southwestern part, which has an 
altitude of 391 meters. 
Originally Guam was undoubtedly covered with a continuous 
forest of one type or another, but this has, since its settlement 
by man, to a large degree been destroyed. In its place are now 
found cultivated and fallow lands, waste places, areas covered 
with thickets of second growth shrubs and trees, and very large 
areas that are covered with coarse grasses. As in the Philip- 
pines, and in Malaya and Polynesia generally, the origin and 
* Associate Professor of Botany, University of the Philippines. 
* The Useful Plants of the Island of Guam with an Introductory Account 
of the Physical Features and Natural History of the Island, of the Char- 
acter and History of its people, and their Agriculture. Contr. U. S. Nat. 
Herb. 9 (1905) 1-416, plates 1-70. 
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