(365) 



To Cuba 8 



To Porto Rico 8 



To St. Christopher Island i 



To Hayti 2 



To Santo Domingo 2 



To Montserrat 2 



Tojamaica ii 



To the Bahamas 13 



Total 62 



In addition to these foreign expeditions, which it will 

 be noted do not include our work in the Philippines, in 

 Hawaii, and in South America, many have been conducted 

 within the United States proper. Light on the same sub- 

 ject has been sought through a number of special investi- 

 gations of our fossil flora and from a search of the floral 

 records relating to contiguous territory. 



To one not conversant with the extent of the require- 

 ments for the solution of problems relating to the geographic 

 and evolutionary origin of a flora, this may seem like a 

 mere amassing of museum and herbarium material, while to 

 the critical student it means the correction or verification 

 of important records, the tracing of the lines of plant 

 distribution, extinction, and development, and even of 

 contributions to the history of climatic and geographic 

 changes. It is, indeed, natural history in its broadest 

 sense. Above all, it should be remembered that such a 

 problem cannot be solved until after all of its factors have 

 been determined. Seven excursions into Cuba, ten into 

 Jamaica, or twelve to the Bahamas, may fail to establish 

 the one important condition which will be recorded by 

 the eighth, eleventh, or thirteenth respectively. It is the 

 opinion of our Director-in-Chief, whose important duty 

 it has been to analyse and collate this enormous accum- 

 mulation of facts, that the results of this extended work of 

 exploration have been highly profitable and satisfactory, 

 and that we are in a position to understand the nature of 

 our flora as we could not possibly have done without this 

 decade of laborious and patient investigation. 



