8 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



The New York Botanical Garden, by means of a bequest by the 

 late ex-Chief Justice Charles P. Dah^ and other funds at its com- 

 mand, has undertaken, under the direction of Prof. L. M. Under- 

 wood and Prof. N. L. Britton, the preparation and publication of a 

 Systematic Botany of North America, designed to furnish citations 

 and descriptions of all plant species occurring in North America, 

 including subarctic regions, the West Indies, and Central America 

 and comprising all plants from the simplest to the most complex, 

 from the Myxomycetes to the Compositae. Cooperation with the 

 botanists of other institutions has been arranged for in this work. 



The further exploration of the North American tropics would 

 render this work the more complete, and therefore the more valu- 

 able. Several trained botanical collectors should be put in the field, 

 the material obtained b\' them to be used in the preparation of the 

 Systematic Botany. The presence of trained collectors in the region 

 would afford opportunity for securing material of particular species 

 needed by investigators in various laboratories for the solution of 

 problems under study. 



The economic features of the investigation would certainly be val- 

 uable ; the uses of tropical plants are multifarious, and maii}^ new 

 applications of them and their products in the arts and manufactures 

 would be likely to ensue ; the horticultural aspects of the study 

 would also be important. 



C. The establishment and viaintena7ice , in the region^ of a botanical 

 station, laboratory , and garden for the solution of problems requiring 

 such equipment. 



The present status of the morphology and physiology of plants 

 rests chiefly upon observations made on species indigenous to a re- 

 gion about fifteen degrees in width extending across Europe and 

 America in the north temperate zone, together with some informa- 

 tion derived from the stud}^ of a coraparativel}^ few species from 

 other parts of the world, which could be cultivated in the region in 

 question under more or less abnormal conditions. 



It has been made evident many times that generalizations reached 

 by such limited and circumscribed methods are unsafe and mislead- 

 ing, and it has become plainly apparent that the entire subject of 

 botany ma}^ be developed in a manner commensurate with its scien- 

 tific and economic importance only when a systematic effort is made 

 to extend investigations to cover the vegetation of the tropics, in 

 which many of the more important physiological and morphological 



