BOTANIZING WITH THE OKINAWANS — WALKER 373 



native plants except roadsides and seashores that it has little attrac- 

 tion for a roving botanist. It should be one's first rather than his 

 last island. But yet on our two little forays, additional species of 

 Okinawan 6 plants were found which were not yet represented in our 

 collections, and others received better representation. We stopped 

 briefly at an agricultural school and passed the gaunt spectre that 

 once was a modern sugar refinery, which, if spared, would have been 

 an invaluable factor in postwar rehabilitation of the local economy. 

 Nearby, a blindfolded horse went round and round, operating an 

 ancient, primitive sugar press, and in crude vats unrefined sugar 

 crystallized out of the frothing juice. 



On September 10 we returned to Naha to dry our southern-gathered 

 specimens and to pull together the loose ends before departure. After 

 a farewell Japanese dinner in a neat little upstairs restaurant, we 

 unceremoniously, as seems to be the custom there, said our farewells — 

 one can't be effusive or highly selective of sensitive words when only 

 the simplest are understood and those unaided by grammar and 

 rhetoric. One can only hope that one's affection and respect are 

 transmitted by other than linguistic means. 



Long before daylight on September 19, my plane again rose into 

 the air, swung roaring over sleeping Naha, and was soon lost in 

 the clouds that never opened till we dropped into the rain below 

 them, and looked again on breath-takingly beautiful Japan, neat, 

 clean, relatively prosperous, and completely ordered, at least so it 

 seemed in contrast to the struggling Ryukyus. After further visits 

 with Japanese botanists, attendance as the only foreign guest at 

 the seventeenth annual meeting of the Botanical Society of Japan, 

 and some hours of research in the herbarium of the University of 

 Tokyo, I was off for home via Wake Island, Hawaii, Travis Air 

 Force Base in California, Oakland, San Francisco, and Chicago — and 

 arrived in Washington late on September 30, 4 months to a day from 

 my take-off. 



RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION 



About 1,500 collections, totaling over 6,000 specimens, were flown 

 back to the United States by Army cargo plane. When identified, the 

 first set of these specimens will be deposited in the United States 

 National Herbarium under the Smithsonian Institution, where it will 

 remain along with other Ryukyu specimens to support in part the 

 Flora of Okinawa. One set will go to Japan for study by specialists 

 there, who will report their determinations. Another will go to the 

 Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, the main center for many 

 Pacific studies and for deposit of scientific collections made on the 



* For usage of the name "Okinawa," see annotation in the bibliography, reference 8. 



