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XV. The Botany of the Roraima Expedition of 1884 : being Notes on the Plants 

 observed, by Everard E. im Thtjrn ; with a list of the Species collected, and 

 Determinations of those that are new, by Prof. Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S., and 

 others. (Communicated by Six- J. D. Hooker, K.C.S.I., F.R.S., F.L.S., &c.) 



(Plates XXXVII.-LVI.) 



[Eead 15th April, 1886.] 



I. Notes on the Plants observed during the Roraima Expedition of 1884. 



By Everard E. im Thurn. 



AS was expected, the plants collected on the way to Roraima, and especially about that 

 mountain itself, during the recent expedition and first ascent to its summit, have proved 

 of great interest, now that they have been examined and catalogued at Kew. Several 

 specialists have most kindly lent their aid in examining and determining these plants. 

 While Professor Oliver undertook the bulk of the collection, Mr. J. G. Baker, besides 

 determining a few of the Petaloid Monocotyledons, has, with Mr. G. S. Jenman of 

 British Guiana, worked out the Eerns, Mr. H. N. Pidley, of the British Museum, the 

 Orchids and Cyperacea?, and Mons. E. Marchal the Araliacea3, Dr. Engler has described 

 a new Moronobea, Mr. E. Brown a new Aroid, and Mr. Mitten has named the Muscales ; 

 lastly, Dr. Maxwell Masters has supplied a note on two Passiflorse, perhaps new, but 

 imperfectly represented. In all, fifty-three new species and three new genera have been 

 described by these various workers. 



The number of species collected would probably have been greater but for the extreme 

 difficulty of drying plants in so excessively damp a climate as that of Roraima, and also 

 for the fact that the other very serious labours inseparable from tbe direction of such an 

 expedition greatly curtailed the time I was able to devote to the preparation of botanical 

 specimens. As regards the number of new generic and specific forms collected, great 

 as it is, it woidd undoubtedly have been much greater but for the fact (unfortunate 

 in this respect) that my collection was made at exactly the same period of the year 

 [November and December] at which such collecting as had been done before about 

 Roraima had been accomplished by Sir Robert and Dr. Schomburgk and by Karl 

 Appun*. 



* The list of visitors to Eoraima, other than natives, is as follows :— Sir Robert Schomuurgk, then at the head of 

 a boundary commission, was there in 1838, and again, with his brother, Dr. Richard Schomburgk, the present 

 director of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens, in 184ii. Both made considerable botanical collections, which were distri- 

 buted, I believe, mainly between the Herbaria at Kew, the British Museum, and at Berlin. Karl Arrr/N was at 

 Roraima in 1864 ; his collections are chiefly at Kew. C. B. Brown, then the geological surveyor of British Guiana, 

 ■was there in 1869 ; two Englishmen, Flint and Eddington, were there in 1877 : and two others, M'Turk and 



SECOND SERIES. — BOTANY, VOL. II. 2 Q 



