THE MALAYAN, AUSTALASIAN 
AND POLYNESIAN ELEMENTS IN THE 
PHILIPPINE FLORA. 
BY 
EK. D. MERRILL. 
(Botanist, Bureau of Science, Manila, Phillippine Islands) 
Several papers have been written dealing in part with the 
geographical distribution of Philippine plants, but none of 
importance treating the subject as a whole since the year 1884, 
When Rotre') published his very interesting paper based on 
all the material and information available at that time. His 
Paper summarizes the special cases of peculiar distribution, 
and calls attention to the various elements that comprise the 
flora as a whole. The Phillippine material available at that 
time consisted mostly of the collections made by Cumine and 
Vivan, and as considerably less than one-half the species found 
in the Archipelago were represented in these. collections, any 
Paper based upon them must of necessity have been incom- 
plete; hence it is not surprising that in the past decade, owing 
to extensive collections being made in the Philippines, and the 
material identified as rapidly as possible, that scores ot 
Species have been detected augmenting our knowledge of the 
peculiar characters of the flora as first pointed out by Mr. Ro.rr. 
The only article of importance bearing on the question of 
the geographic affinities of the Philippine flora written since 
1) On the Flora of the Philippine Islands and its probable derivation; Journ. 
Linn. Soc., Bot XXI, (4884) 283—346. 
