306 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



The place of the large herbarium in this cooperative undertaking, as 

 a basic source of documentation, is evident, and the contribution of 

 the individual taxonomist, although often minute and sometimes 

 seemingly remote, is fundamental. 



It is hardly necessary for one to point to the contributions made by 

 plant taxonomists toward the understanding and development of agri- 

 culture, toward a sound basis for ethnological and anthropological 

 studies, or toward research in medicine. In World War II the part 

 played by taxonomists in preparing a series of handbooks upon which 

 the survival of military personnel in remote areas often depended is 

 an irrefutable demonstration of a useful application of plant taxon- 

 omy. When the individual taxonomist makes collections of herbarium 

 material, when he studies and analyzes such material, and when he 

 publishes his floristic or monographic conclusions, he cannot antici- 

 pate for what practical end his data may eventually be utilized. But, 

 in many instances, sudden and dramatic developments in applied 

 science have been incalculably facilitated by knowledge already exist- 

 ing in orderly herbaria and in the published researches of taxonomists. 



Quite apart from such practical considerations, however, I wish 

 here to discuss only one of many theoretical aspects of plant taxonomy 

 as it is related to the area of my special geographical interest, the 

 southwestern Pacific. In this region much remains to be done on a 

 preliminary level of taxonomic study involving the collection and 

 identification of specimens. No taxonomist considers this type of 

 work as more than the first step toward a larger project. In some 

 little-known Pacific regions this first step has still not been firmly 

 taken, and while we are taking it we try to look ahead and see how we 

 may contribute, as taxonomists, toward an understanding of geologi- 

 cal history. Phytogeography, or plant geography, is the study and 

 interpretation of the distribution of plants over the earth's surface, 

 and it is a field of research close to the interests of every plant tax- 

 onomist. It is not too much to say, perhaps, that every floristic study 

 is a contribution toward one ultimate goal, a comprehension of the 

 biogeographical history of the world. 



Until we know with considerable accuracy what species of plants 

 occur naturally in the region under consideration, we cannot intelli- 

 gently discuss either their phylogenetic or migrational history. There- 

 fore, to prepare a regional Flora or at least a well-documented list is 

 the taxonomist's first concern, when he is satisfied that adequate, even 

 though incomplete, field studies have been made. Without such basic 

 knowledge the phytogeographer can go far astray in his conclusions. 



In the Pacific, for instance, it is recognized that Fiji occupies a key 

 position, the archipelago being situated on the eastern rim of an old 

 Melanesian land mass that presumably broke up into its present iso- 



