Hawalian trees—a criticism 
JosepH F. Rock 
In the March number of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 
Club for 1917 (44: 145-157), there appeared a paper by Vaughan 
MacCaughey, entitled “An annotated list of the forest trees of the 
Hawaiian Archipelago.” The paper, which the author describes 
as the first ‘‘comprehensive and concise check list’’ of the Hawaiian 
forest trees, is by no means exhaustive. The nomenclature has 
apparently been copied in its entirety from my book on the indig- 
enous trees of the Hawaiian Islands, published in 1913, and cer- 
tain more recent articles on critical families, in which species from 
the islands are described, are not considered. 
That the author’s knowledge of Hawaiian plants is incomplete 
is evidenced by his remarks under Pritchardia, where he states, 
‘there are at least two well-defined species, P. Gaudichaudii H. 
Wendl. and P. Martiti H. Wendl.”” These two species are not at 
all well defined. Their types, in fact, which Dr. Beccari and I 
have examined in the Webb herbarium at Florence, Italy, consist 
of immature leaf specimens only, and their published descriptions 
are extremely meager. Neither of the two species has been col- 
lected again in a wild state since its original discovery, and of 
P. Gaudichaudii no cultivated specimens are extant. It was sup- 
posed to have been found on a rock islet off the windward coast of 
Molokai, not far from the leper colony. Nine other species of 
Pritchardia, however, are now known from the Hawaiian Islands. 
These species are all well defined and are all represented by com- 
plete living and herbarium material. An extensive publication 
by Beccari,* in which full descriptions may be found, seems to be 
unknown to the author. 
Besides the works dealing with Pritchardia, there are several 
other instances of unfamiliarity with the recent literature which 
_ might be cited. Heimerl’s paper on certain genera of the Nyctag- 
* Contributo alla conoscenza delle Palme. Webbia 4: 143-240. f. I-17. 1913. 
See also Rock, J. F., A new species of Pritchardia. Bull. Torrey Club, 43: 385-387. 
bl. 21 +f.7r. 1916. : 
545 
