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its first third of a century, was begun by an expedition to Porto 

 Rico by Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Heller in 1898, financed by Cornelius 

 Vanderbilt. Dr. Britton's first personal participation in this West 

 Indian exploration was in 1901, when, in company with Dr. John 

 F. Cowell, Director of the Buffalo Botanic Garden, he spent a few 

 weeks on St. Kitt's (St. Christopher's) of the Leeward Islands 

 group. A paragraph in his report foreshadows the general policy 

 of the Garden in its field work during many succeeding years : 



"The personal reconnaissance of the West Indian flora, taken 

 together with other considerations, has convinced me that our 

 exploration work for a series of years had best be mainly done in 

 the West Indies and Central America. It is certain that this course 

 would bring to light a very large number of species new to science, 

 and the specimens illustrating them, as well as other species of 

 rarity, would greatly enrich our collections in all departments. It 

 would render more complete our work on the systematic botany of 

 North America, and would tend to make the plants of tropical 

 America more accurately known, and thus have an important bear- 

 ing upon the increasing commercial relations of the United States 

 with the countries to the south of our present domain. I hope to 

 present, in the near future, a plan for this proposed system of 

 exploration." 



Dr. Britton himself participated personally in no less than thirty 

 botanical visits to the West Indies, mostly at his own expense. 



In 1901, a plan for the publication of the "North American 

 Flora" was adopted and its preparation referred to Professors L. 

 M. Underwood and N. L. Britton. The work was to be complete 

 in thirty volumes (afterwards extended to thirty-four) and "North 

 America" was to be interpreted liberally, to include Greenland 

 to the north and the Republic of Panama and the West Indies on 

 the south. The cooperation of prominent botanists outside of the 

 Garden staff was assured, but the magnitude of the task and other 

 activities of the leading contributors have operated to slow down 

 publication to a greater degree than was anticipated by the original 

 promoters of the ambitious enterprise. At the present time, twenty- 

 nine years after the appearance of the first part, seventy- four parts 

 have been published and only one volume of the proposed thirty- 

 four is complete. It is hoped that ways may be found to bring this 

 great undertaking to a reasonably early completion. 



