INTRODUCTION. 



INTRODUCTION 



In the first and second fascicles of this work, 1 treated all 

 Formosan plants belonging to families from the Ranunculaceae 

 to the Dips ace ac, and it was my desire to treat the remaining 

 families in the present volume so as to complete the flora in the 

 rather compact form of a conspectus. But the new materials with 

 which I have been loaded down since last year, and especially 

 the collections made by myself in my two excursions to the 

 island (in 1912) are so numerous that it has required my whole 

 time to work up even the first part of them, and this has 

 compelled me to put off, for some years, the continuation of the 

 conspectus appearing in the preceding fascicles. The present 

 volume is, therefore, almost wholly devoted to the results of a 

 study of the materials which have been worked up since last 

 year, and the results are here given under the heading, " Contri- 

 butions to the Flora of Formosa I." All the species are here 

 arranged, as in the preceding volumes, after the system of BENTHAM 

 and HOOKER. 



The collections above referred to are really considerable, and 

 it will apparently take my whole time for nearly two years more 

 to work them up thoroughly. Consequently it is probable that 

 two more volumes will be required to present the results of in- 

 vestigations of the materials which are now on my hands. The 

 conspectus mentioned above will, therefore, I trust, be continued 

 by 1915. 



