362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 2 



lections in the United States National Herbarium under the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, I assumed the task of preparing the manuscript 

 for duplication. Its lack of documentation by specimens studied 

 by the authors was recognized, but, if duplicated, it could be a useful 

 aid in building a new reference herbarium. This Flora lacked refer- 

 ences to scientific publications, but these I could supply. Documenta- 

 tion by specimens, however, was impossible, since the National Her- 

 barium and other American herbaria contain a mere sprinkling of 

 specimens from the Ryukyus and since access to Japanese herbaria was 

 impossible. The Flora of Okinawa was, therefore, far from scientifi- 

 cally acceptable. During this work I was in correspondence with the 

 two original authors and with the third author, Tetsuwo Amano (pi. 1, 

 upper, left) , another ardent Okinawan botanist, who, on his repatri- 

 ation after the war from duties as a forester with the Japanese in 

 Manchuria, supplied many additions to Sonohara's and Tawada's list. 



SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION IN THE RYUKYU ISLANDS 



At this point the United States Civil Administration of the Ryu- 

 kyus, called USCAR for short, the successor to the naval government 

 earlier in charge, found in the Pacific Science Board of the National 

 Research Council— National Academy of Sciences in Washington 

 an answer to its need for scientific information on which to base its 

 programs for bringing about greater economic independence and self- 

 sufficiency in these islands. It made a contract with the National 

 Academy of Sciences which enabled the Pacific Science Board to 

 conduct two joint programs with the Civil Administration for "Scien- 

 tific Investigation of the Ryukyu Islands," characteristically designat- 

 ed the SIRI program. One part of this program called for a botani- 

 cal survey of the Ryukyu Islands. 



Learning of my special interest in the botany of the Ryukyus, the 

 Pacific Science Board asked me to undertake this mission. The United 

 States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, generously re- 

 leased me for four months from other duties. This seemed to me 

 an almost God-given opportunity to collect documented scientific 

 plant specimens that would constitute a foundation for the Flora of 

 Okinawa by Sonohara, Tawada, and Amano. Furthermore, the work 

 would begin to supply the Army's need for basic botanical informa- 

 tion on the area. It was stipulated in the objectives of the trip that 

 I would give aid to agricultural, forestry, and other economic projects 

 then under way. As these objectives developed, there was added 

 that of helping to establish a herbarium at the recently created Uni- 

 versity of the Ryukyus (pi. 2, upper). The core of this herbarium 

 would be a selected set of the specimens from those collected under the 

 SIR! program after they were properly identified. 



