THE CINCHONA BOTANICAL STATION 5 2 5 



the flowering plants of this most interesting part of Jamaica by Messrs. 

 William Fawcett and William Harris, of the staff. Diligent search for 

 new forms in the more inaccessible regions was made especially by Mr. 

 Harris, while G. L. Jenman, then superintendent of Castleton Gardens, 

 studied the ferns of this area. Hundreds of species of mosses, ferns 

 and seed plants new to the island, and to science, were found by these 

 workers. The Flora of Jamaica, now being published by Fawcett 

 and Kendle from the British Museum, was initiated at Cinchona. 

 Records were also made for twenty years of the temperature and rainfall 

 at several stations in this region, including Blue Mountain Peak, at 

 7,423 feet elevation. 



Some sixteen years ago the staff was removed to new headquarters 

 at Hope Gardens, near Kingston, from which the lowland agriculture, 

 now of most importance to the island, can be more readily studied and 

 aided. For a number of years after the removal of headquarters, the 

 Cinchona Station was not occupied, except occasionally as a summer 

 retreat from the heat of the plains, by the governor, or other island offi- 

 cials, or by visiting botanists. For example, it was used as a base for 

 botanical work by Campbell in 1897, by Harshberger in 1902, and by 

 Underwood, Maxon, Johnson and Shreve in 1903. 



The importance of the later history of Cinchona, during its lease by 

 the New York Botanical Garden, has already been suggested. Aside 

 from being used as a propagating station, it has been the base for much 

 purely botanical work by Americans and Englishmen. Researches have 

 come from Cinchona during the past decade by workers from the New 

 York Botanical Garden, the United States National Museum, Colum- 

 bia, Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, and Wellesley College. Im- 

 portant studies of the ecological distribution of Blue Mountain plants 

 have been made here by Forrest Shreve, of Johns Hopkins University 

 and of the Carnegie Institution. Developmental and anatomical in- 

 vestigations have been initiated at Cinchona on the Orchidaceae, Piper- 

 aceae, Loranthaceae, Filicales and Hepaticeae by investigators from 

 Columbia, Glasgow, Johns Hopkins and Yale Universities. Aside from 

 the investigations accomplished, many botanists have here had their 

 first opportunity of perceiving the intimate dependence of certain types 

 of extreme specialization in plant structure on the accentuation of defi- 

 nite climatic or edaphic conditions. In other words, many have here 

 first seen ferns and seed plants living as epiphytes, and have first ap- 

 preciated the extreme diversity of habit and complexity of composition 

 attained by the plant life of a primeval forest under tropical conditions. 



Cinchona and the Surroundings 



The Cinchona Station of to-day consists in the first place of the 

 residence, a bungalow. This, with an adjoining building, can furnish 



