360 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



more self-sufficient. Those in charge have undertaken a new and 

 difficult job, but they are attacking the problems in a realistic manner 

 and at their roots. In order to bring about this urgent recovery, the 

 administrators recognize that they must have exact scientific informa- 

 tion on which to base their decisions and programs. Such information 

 is all too scanty. As far as botany is concerned, although the area has 

 been an integral part of the Japanese Empire since 1871, Japanese 

 scientists in 1941 still considered it the dark region of Japanese 

 botany. Naturally westerners knew little of the area, although 

 English, Dutch, French, German, and American naturalists had oc- 

 casionally collected plants there since about 1800. The last western 

 botanist permitted to visit the region was E. H. Wilson, of the Arnold 

 Arboretum of Harvard University, who was there in 1917 (15) . 2 Of 

 course, the Japanese botanists have studied the area to some extent 

 but have not as yet produced the comprehensive treatment of the flora 

 that is needed. There is, however, one work that partly supplies 

 this need and is important to this story of botanizing in the Ryukyus 

 in 1951. It is a Flora of Okinawa written by three local botanists 

 and now mimeographed in Nana, Okinawa, by the United States 

 Civil Administration (8). 



PREPARATION OF A FLORA OF OKINAWA 



Many of the men of the United States occupation forces in the Ryu- 

 kyus after the war ceased in 1945 were natural-history minded. They 

 were, however, frustrated in their attempts to satisfy their curiosity 

 about the plants of their environment by the lack of any adequate 

 books to guide them. They needed a Flora of Okinawa, and, as with 

 other determined people, they soon found a solution. In Sakuya 

 Sonohara, ardent Okinawan botanist and teacher of agriculture and 

 forestry, they found a man capable and willing to write such a Flora 

 (pi. 1, upper, right). Acting on the suggestion of these botanically 

 interested American servicemen of the occupation forces, Lieutenant 

 Commander Hanna, director of the Education Department, American 

 Naval Military Government in Okinawa, and Atsuo Yamashiro, di- 

 rector of the Education Department, Okinawan Civilian Administra- 

 tion, asked Mr. Sonohara to prepare this work. But Sonohara, near- 

 ing 60 years of age, soon became ill of malaria, and his younger friend, 

 fellow teacher, and botanical associate, Shinjun Tawada (pi. 1, lower) , 

 discovered his plight and his worthy task and, fearing the death of his 

 teacher before its completion, joined eagerly in the work. Here, it 

 seemed, was the opportunity they had long sought to write a Flora 

 of Okinawa. But the obstacles were great. 



J See references at end of text. 



