AUG. 1895. FLORA OF YUCATAN MILLSPAUGH. 5 



knowledge concerning the plant life of the peninsula in the following 

 words: "We may add that little is known of the details of the bot- 

 any of Yucatan, except that it is very poor and scanty, and largely com- 

 posed of plants that still bear long droughts without injury. The 

 poverty of the flora is ascribed to the fact that the copious rains rap- 

 idly filter away through the porous limestone substratum." All this 

 renders the botany of the country of still greater interest, and its de- 

 velopment of the greatest. It is, therefore, for this reason that the 

 Museum has decided to put a collector at work in the field and ac- 

 cumulate full knowledge of its flora. In order, therefore, that our 

 work may be as complete as possible, we have carefully compiled in 

 this first contribution all that we could find published concerning 

 previous collections. 



The history of previous work toward a knowledge of this region 

 is that of fragmentary collections, no collector having so far done any 

 exhaustive collecting in the field. 



In 1835, Jean Jules Linden, a Belgian horticulturist, gathered 

 about twenty-five species of plants in Yucatan while on his way to 

 Vera Cruz. This constitutes the first known collection from this part 

 of Mexico. 



In 1848, Hon. E. P. Johnson collected about seventy-five species, 

 which he sent to Dr. Torrey with the label " Yucatan and Tabasco." 

 Some doubt is therefore felt as to the purely Yucatan specimens in 

 the gathering. 



In 1885 and 1886, Dr. George F. Gaumer, while collecting in 

 ornithology for the British Museum, gathered on the islands of the 

 east coast, the inflorescence and a few leaves of by far the largest 

 number of plants that have come out of the country, 224 species. 

 These, together with the two collections mentioned above, were 

 worked over by Prof. Hemsley for the Biologia, and comprise all that 

 is known of the insular flora of Yucatan. 



The collection which forms the basis of this contribution was 

 made last January, during an expedition to the ruined city of Chichen 

 Itza, and the Islands of Mugeres and Cozumel, and is again incomplete 

 and fragmentary, on account of the excessive dryness of the season, 

 and the rapidity of movement of the party. The expedition was 

 generously planned and carried forward by Mr. Allison V. Armour of 

 Chicago, and as it was conducted in his steam j'acht it gave an 

 opportunity of visiting the islands, that would otherwise have been 

 unattainable. 



In the following list, the species in black face type are those col- 

 lected or observed by myself, the balance, in the body type, have 

 been carefully compiled from the pages of the Biologia Centrali- 



