ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON BOTANY 7 



the development of population and industries. We need, however, 

 authoritative and precise information about each of these floral areas, 

 its location, boundaries, characteristic vegetation, the interrelation 

 of its component elements to each other, the characteristic features 

 of the climate with which each flora is associated, and the relation 

 of the vegetation to geological formations. 



Finally, each flora should be investigated from the standpoint of 

 its interrelationship with the people who are associated with it geo- 

 graphically. A study of the plants used by any aboriginal race, 

 particularly a prehistoric race, throws great light on its industries, 

 migrations, and civilization. The Central American tropics furnish 

 a wealth of material of this sort which has never been exploited from 

 a critical botanical standpoint. 



The geographic botanical investigation here outlined promises re- 

 sults (>f great significance in ethnologic science, while the clear 

 knowledge of the vegetative covering of the region which is contem- 

 plated will be fundamentally useful in the social and industrial 

 development of these areas which is plainly foreshadowed b}^ the 

 commercial necessities of the United States. 



B. A?i extensive system of collecting and deterinining species a7id re- 

 cording data as a ineans of obtaiyiing the facts necessary to a proper 

 lenders tandi7ig of the problems outlined above, and for other purposes. 



In addition to the necessity of extensive collecting in order to se- 

 cure the facts necessary in the geographic researches above described, 

 there are other reasons why it is desirable to increase our knowledge 

 of the plants of the West Indies and Central America. These re- 

 gions have been partially explored from time to time, but continuous 

 systematic examination of them has not yet been possible, and it is 

 certain that a large number of plant species new to science, and of 

 others about which little is known, occur there. Every botanical 

 collector who visits any part of the region brings back previously 

 unknown forms. The field is therefore a most fertile one for taxo- 

 nomic research. 



Many species whose life history has never been studied occur in the 

 West Indies and Central America, and their investigation would cer- 

 tainly shed much light on questions of development and relationship. 



Problems in comparative morphology and anatomy almost with- 

 out number remain unsolved among species existing only in the 

 American tropics, and the geographic distribution of the species 

 comprising the tropical flora can only be made better known by fur- 

 ther exploration. 



