308 ANNUAL REPORT SAHTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



The tropical-plant collector does not travel lightly. Because in most 

 tropical countries one cannot hope for a local source of supply, it is 

 necessary to take most of the collecting equipment needed, including 

 considerable quantities of paper, driers, corrugated boards, small kero- 

 sene stoves, straps, envelopes, and the many other special things that 

 are essential. In a country like Fiji, however, one can obtain kerosene 

 for drying plants, axes, machetes, and similar standard items. There- 

 fore, upon arriving in Suva in March 1953, with my wife and our two 

 children, I disclosed to a somewhat baffled but very helpful customs 

 officer more than a ton of baggage. At this point I might interpolate 

 a word of thanlcs to all the government officials in Fiji ; their courtesy 

 and friendly cooperation at every stage of my work there has been 

 exemplary. For a few days we renewed our acquaintance with friends 

 made in 1947-48 and established new contacts, while planning a pro- 

 visional schedule of fieldwork. The local Department of Agriculture 

 generously gave me working and storage space and furthermore sec- 

 onded to me a young Fijian assistant, Bernardo Vunibobo, to act as 

 interpreter and "head boy" for the ensuing 9 months. 



For our first headquarters, Bernardo and I selected a small Fijian 

 village, Ndakuivuna, in Tailevu Province, eastern Viti Levu. This 

 village is situated in a region of low hills between the sea and the Wai- 

 nimbuka River, and from it we could collect in the thick rain forest 

 that covers most of the southern and eastern parts of the island. As 

 Viti Levu has an area of about 4,000 square miles and contains many 

 peaks exceeding 3,000 feet, to make a complete botanical survey of this 

 one island would take many years; consequently collectors can hope 

 only to sample a number of representative habitats and elevations. 

 Many of the high points of Viti Levu having been botanically ex- 

 plored with reasonable thoroughness, I hoped in 1953 to sample the 

 middle-elevation forest of a few selected regions. The Tailevu forest, 

 where it has not been invaded by European and Indian settlers and 

 by the route of the highway around Viti Levu, remains largely undis- 

 turbed, as Fijian cultivation merely scratches the surface here and 

 there. 



In April the rainy season in Fiji is slowly approaching its unwilling 

 end, and one becomes accustomed to ignoring the weather. Very soon 

 I found myself in a familiar daily pattern bounded by the steep hill- 

 side gardens that ring the village, the little hunting trails, obscure and 

 deep in mud, the wet undergrowth, the sudden drenching showers, and 

 the noonday halt, with lunch of ndalo (Colocasia), yams {Dioscorea)^ 

 and a tin of meat or fish. The collector's reward for spending a day 

 in this manner is, to him at any rate, very tangible, if he obtains a 

 few specimens of rare plants, perhaps new to the district or even to 

 the island, perhaps known otherwise from one or two collections, or 



