VI PREFACE, 



hence the necessity of successive further supplements, even irrespective 

 of needful references to future discoveries, because in the progress of 

 geographic, medical, technologic and chemical inquiries many new plants 

 of utilitarian value are likely to be disclosed, and new uses of known 

 plants to be elucidated. Thus, for instance, among the trees and shrubs 

 or herbs and grasses occurring in the middle and higher altitudinal zones 

 of Africa or, nearer to us, of New Guinea and the Sunda Islands, many 

 specific forms may be expected to occur, which we could transfer to other 

 extra-tropical countries or to mountains in equinoctial regions. Indeed, 

 the writer would modestly hope, that his local efforts may prove to be of 

 usefulness also in other parts of the globe ; and in this hope he is cheered 

 by the generous action of an enlightened American, Mr. Ell wood Cooper, 

 late Principal of the Santa Barbara College of California, who deemed 

 the publications, first offered for Australian use, also worthy of re-issue 

 in America. Moreover, gradual or partial reprints appeared previously 

 in weekly journals of Sydney and San Francisco and in some other 

 periodicals. It was stated before, that the rapid progress of tillage 

 almost throughout our colonial dominions is causing more and more a 

 desire for general and particular indications of such plants, which a 

 colder clime excludes from the northern countries, where many of our 

 colonists spent their youth ; and it must be clear to any reflecting mind, 

 that in all warmer latitudes, as compared with the Middle-European 

 zones, a vastly enlarged scope exists for cultural choice of plants. 

 Indicative as these notes merely are, yet they may thus facilitate the 

 selection. More extensive information can then be followed up in larger 

 though more partial work^ extant elsewhere, or likely yet to be called 

 forth for local requirements in other countries. The writer should even 

 not be disinclined, under fair support and encouragement, to issue collateral 

 to the present volume also another, exclusively devoted to the industrial 

 plants of the hotter zones for the promotion of tropical culture, particu- 

 larly in our Australian continent. Considerable difficulty was experienced 

 in drawing the limits of the remarks admissible into the present pages, 

 because a certain plant may be important only under particular climatic 

 conditions and cultural applications, or it may have been overrated in 

 regard to the copiousness and relative value of its yield. Thus it was 

 not always easy to sift the chaff from the grain, when these notes were 



