THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



DECEMBER, 1914 



THE CINCHONA BOTANICAL STATION 



By Professor DUNCAN S. JOHNSON 



JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 



THE botanical laboratory and garden at Cinchona, in the Blue Moun- 

 tains of Jamaica, which for the past ten years has been a tropical 

 station of the New York Botanical Garden, is now to be maintained 

 under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, with the cooperation of the Jamaican government. The Brit- 

 ish Association is concerned primarily in making Cinchona available for 

 British investigators, but it is believed that, except when the laboratory 

 is taxed to its capacity by appointees of this association, its privileges, 

 will be extended, upon the recommendation of the Jamaican government,, 

 to properly accredited American botanists. 



The opening of a new chapter in the history of this long-established 

 seat of botanical activity makes this a fitting time to call attention to the 

 work that has been done at this laboratory during the past forty years, 

 and to its peculiar advantages in location as a botanical station. We 

 may also note the evidence for the need of such a laboratory, and the 

 character of its possible service to botanical science. "With the general 

 appreciation of the variety of plant material and other advantages to be 

 had at this laboratory, it is believed that Cinchona will be more and 

 more resorted to by investigators working on those botanical problems 

 which can best be studied with organisms living under tropical or sub- 

 tropical conditions. 



The need of a botanical laboratory in the western tropics, which 

 could offer the facilities and give the stimulus afforded to old-world 

 botanists by the Dutch garden at Buitenzorg, in Java, has long been 

 recognized by American botanists. It is true that biological explorers 

 in quest of new forms, or of new evidence concerning the distribution of 

 known forms, have been searching since the days of Hans Sloane (1687) 

 and Humboldt (1799-1804) through many parts of the western tropics.. 

 The plant taxonomists of Europe, of the H. S. National Herbarium, of 



VOL. LXXXV. — 36 



