these species, one must also expand one’s view of their 
possible usefulness beyond the purposes for which they 
are employed in the simplistic contexts of their ethno- 
botanical origins. ‘Today we can cure venereal disease ; 
we have anodynes for dysmenorrhea and synthetic opi- 
ates for labor. The major value of the notes referred to 
may lie in how they might bear incidentally upon such 
fields as cancer, heart, mental and metabolic research. 
It is in such a questioning posture that we hope to present 
these and all our materials to science in a forthcoming 
catalogue. 
Today, not even ten years after our first thoughts on 
searching herbaria, we inevitably ask whether it is not 
imperative to attempt now—perhaps through the inter- 
national cooperation of various scientists and govern- 
ments—to preserve living examples of all extant species, 
including economic and presently non-economic plants. 
| take this opportunity to recommend that coordinated 
efforts to this end would be particularly fruitful in the 
so-called underdeveloped nations where, it so happens, 
one encounters the most promising of ethnobotanical 
raw materials, directly from the indigenous societies 
which give birth to their uses. If civilized man does not 
act now, he may leave his descendants irretrievable losses 
and, possibly, the undoing of his own species through 
want of some missing botanical essential to a future 
generation. 
[ 342 ] 
