PREFACE 



was just such a guide as a horticultural explorer might take 

 to a new country. It was not a list of actual discoveries made 

 by its author, nor a record of plants of indisputable Philippine 

 origin, but a compilation that was to prove useful for refer- 

 ence. In my enumeration of genera and species in the follow- 

 ing pages I have regarded Boxall's manuscript as useless for pur- 

 poses of citation unless subsequent collections have verified its 

 contents. 



The unrestrained adoption of Boxall's manuscript list does not 

 complete the shortcomings of the Novissima Appendix, because 

 the determination of its authors to reduce Blanco's species to 

 older ones, on the assumption that few of them w r ere new, and 

 their efforts to identify with the plants of India and the Malayan 

 region the components of the Philippine flora resulted in numer- 

 ous errors in judgment. A single example will suffice to make 

 clear what I mean. Cypripedium Fairrieanum was included by 

 Naves as a native of the Philippines, although its habitat at the 

 time was extremely doubtful. The native country was not defi- 

 nitely known until 1905, twenty-two years after the publica- 

 tion of Naves' work, w r hen specimens were found in the valley 

 of the Torsa or Amuchu River (Machoo of some authors), in the 

 Chumbi district of Western Bhotan, in India. 



It has been estimated that of the one thousand one hundred 

 and twenty-seven species and varieties of plants described by 

 Blanco five only were deemed valid by the authors of the Novis- 

 sima Appendix. In other words, one thousand one hundred and 

 twenty -two of them were reduced to synonymy without discus- 

 sion. Merrill sums up the revision of Naves and his colleague, 

 Fernandez- Villar, as follows: "It is evident that these authors 

 accomplished their work in the library rather than in the field 

 and in the herbarium, and that they reduced Blanco's species to 



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