20 Historica! DeTeloiuuent of onr Kiinwledge on the Cyiiriau Flora. 



students.')— Some short papers by Gexnadius, touching botanical matters, are quoted in tlie list of literature, 

 accompanying this book. 



Here we must also speak of the chapter dealing with the plant-life in prof. Eig. Obeuhummkr's 

 great book "Die Insel Cypern'', vol. I, Miiuchen 1903, a work of German diligence and thoroughness, 

 which cannot but awake our admiration for the large amount of labour laid down in it. Oberhummer is 

 not a botanist himself, and his description of the actual vegetation is therefore chiefly a compilation from 

 KoTsCHY and other authors mentioned above, only with addition of few new facts. Of far greater importance 

 are his researches on the history of cultivated and other useful plants in ancient and mediæval age. 

 Students of plant-history owe him thanks for the great care he has taken in collecting new moments, 

 which may throw light upon some little known problemes in the history of various oriental plants. 



In the years 1904 and 1905 Cj^prus was again visited by a German botanist. Ernst Hartmaxx, 

 living at Beirut and known for his collections of Lebanon-plants. He has published a paper on the forests 

 of the island,-) containing several interesting observations, Avhich are utilized in a subsequent chapter of 

 this book. In the fascicles XVII and XVIII of A. Kneucker's exsiccate-work "Gramineæ exsiccatæ" 

 are distributed some Cyprian gi'asses, including a couple of species new to the floi-a of the island, from 

 his collections. 



The most recent contribution to the flora of Cyprus is a paper by an English author, Harold 

 Stuart Thompson, who has in "Journal of Botany" in the autumn of 1906 published a list of Cyprian 

 vascular plants.') This list is partly based upon the determination of the valuable collections of ilr. A. G. 

 and Miss M. E. Lascelles from 1900—1902 and Miss E. A. Samson from 1904, and is partly a com- 

 pilation (by far not complete) from the works of earlier investigators. The list comprises about 46 species, 

 which were not before recorded from the island. 



In concluding this account on botanical investigations on the island in foiiner and I'cccnt years 

 we shall only remark, that the state of the exploration is not at any rate so widely progressed, as 

 might be supposed from the enumeration of so many names. Most collectors of plants have only made 

 short visits to the island, where they have only had occasion to make themselves familiar with the neigh- 

 bourhood of the seaports of Larnaka and Limassol or with that of the capital, Nikosia. Also among those 

 visitors, who have undertaken longer excursions to the island, the greater number have chiefly retui'ned 

 to a few places, which are easily accessible to travellers and are renowned for their rich vegetation. 

 Such localities are: the mountain of Stavrovuni ("Sta. Croce", "Kreuzberg") near Larnaka, the hospitable 

 monasteries of Makhaeras and Trooditissa. the village of Kythraea NE of Nikosia (near the mountains of 

 Pentadaktylos and Buftavento), Prodromo, the highest village of the island, in the centre of the Troodos- 

 mountains (the summit of Chionistra can easily be reached from here), etc. Even if no part of Cyprus 

 can at present time be considered quite as a "terra incognita" from a floristical point of \ie\v, considerable 

 stretches of the island have only been passed through once, at a single season, by travelling botanists. 



Only the early spring-flora about Larnaka, Nikosia. Kythraea, etc., as well as the summer-flora in 

 the central parts of the Troodos-mountains, on Pentadaktylos and BuflFavcnto is proportionally well known. 



') p. G. Gensadics, KuTipiaxi <PuTa, -% ovojia-a tuv, t, y.i-i'iMfr, Ta-t, t, /ptiJ'.; twi. ('Puvt ttj? Ku^rpou, Aiyzus-a IHiil i. 

 -) Ersst Hartmank, Die Walder der Iiisel Cypern (Jlitteil. Dentscli. Dendrolog. (ies. Nr. 14. 1905). 

 =*) H. S. Thompson, The Hora of Cvprus (.lournal of Botany, ani;-.— oitbr. IStOfj). 



I 



