THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



NOVEMBER, 1912 



A ROUND-THE-WORLD BOTANICAL EXCURSION 



By Professor CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN 



UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



IN August, 1911, it was my good fortune to start on an extensive 

 botanical expedition under the auspices of the University of 

 Chicago. The principal places visited included the Sandwich Islands,. 

 Fiji Islands, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Teneriffe, from 

 which place the return to Chicago was by way of London and New 

 York. The trip was unique in that I went entirely alone and for the 

 purpose of making a strictly scientific investigation of the oriental 

 cycads, a group which is not even suspected of having any economic 

 importance. 



The cycads are a gjmmosperm family whose remote ancestors were 

 abundant in the Paleozoic age, and whose less remote ancestors were 

 abundant and had a world-wide distribution in the Mesozoic. Now, 

 only nine genera remain, and these are confined to tropical and sub- 

 tropical regions, and even there they are very local in their distribution. 

 Four genera are western and five eastern. Of our four western genera, 

 one ranges from Florida to Chili, two are found only in Mexico and 

 one, only in Cuba. Of the eastern genera, one ranges from Japan to 

 Australia, two are found only in Australia and two only in South 

 Africa. 



Having already made a ten years' study of the American forms, 

 especially the Mexican genera, which I had collected during four visits 

 to the Mexican tropics, it was necessary to make a similar stucly of the 

 oriental forms before any safe conclusions could be drawn in regard to 

 relationships and evolutionary tendencies. Now, with abundant 

 material of all the genera and many of the species, a study of devel- 

 opment and evolutionary tendencies should yield valuable results, espe- 

 cially since the Paleozoic ancestors are becoming well known through 



VOL. LXXXI.— 29. 



