V,2 DR. E. P. PHILLIPS 



is well exemplified in the following instance. Some years 

 ago a valuable timber which possesses the property of re- 

 sis ring the attacks of boring molluscs w^as exported from 

 British Guiana to the West Indies and used for piles in 

 the construeticm of jetties, etc. Apparently no record of 

 the species of the tree was kept at the time, and it is 

 stated that its identit^ has been lost, and that further 

 consignments are unobtainable in consequence. With 

 pi'o]>er care and organisation such occurrences should be 

 impossible. 



Such facts as the above could be multiplied indefinitely 

 if space permitted but the few illustrations cited will be 

 sullicient to show that the systematist investigating a 

 group of plants in the herbarium, sifting and classifying 

 evidence furnished by collectors, the results of the 

 chemist's investigations and any other item of infor- 

 mation he may have acquired from odd sources, is cpiietly 

 but surely laying the foimdation for other lines of 

 botanical investigation. 



The writer has tried to show the great importance to 

 agriculture of ecological studies, but without the 

 herbarium and SASlematist, whom he must consult, the 

 ecologist could hardly publish his results. They would 

 resemble a geographical description of a country with the 

 names of the towns, villages, mountains, and rivers 

 omitted. 



If one considers also the ravages due to injurious 

 parasitic fungi and bacteria, the need for scientific investi- 

 gations is again ap})arent. Marshall ^Vard, a famous 

 English Mycologist stated that Coffee-leaf disease caused 

 by the fungus Hemileia cost Ceylon over one million 

 IHMinds sterling a year for several years. In S. Africa we 

 know of the destruction caused by Citrus Canker. Pro- 

 blems of this nature are for the Mycologist to solve but as 

 some of* these injurious fungi also live on native species 

 of plants, the Mycologist must obtain the aid of the 

 systematist for the identification of native species of host 

 plants, as a knowledge of these may prove a vital factor 



