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one or two people there for a few weeks. We need an 
expedition with several active collectors remaining a suffi- 
cient time in the island to attain the higher altitudes where 
the endemic features of the flora will probably be more 
abundant. 
‘3. One of the greatest needs of our collectors in the West 
Indies and a need that is being made known constantly by 
visitors to these islands, as well as by settlers from our own 
country in these islands, is some means of knowing the 
island flora with a minimum of critical effort. This is be- 
coming specially pressing from the increasing number of 
American students who are now visiting Jamaica where we 
are maintaining a tropical laboratory. Grisebach’s Flora of 
the British West Indies published in 1864 was made by a 
German working at long range (because he had never vis- 
ited the West Indies), is full of errors, out of date, and its 
cumbrous style has never adapted it for successful and rapid 
field use. It does not give more than four fifths of the present 
known flora of this most important English-speaking island. 
The time is not ripe for the publication of a descriptive 
flora, for there are large areas yet to be explored, and species 
new to science are coming constantly to light. There is 
need, however, of a revised list of plants of the island which 
to be of real value must be accompanied by synopses of the 
families, genera, and species. Such a synopsis of even the 
tropical plant families of America is not available to this day 
in the English language, and this alone would be of great 
value not only in Jamaica but in all parts of the American 
tropics. The critical work on such a proposed synopsis can 
only be done in the presence of such facilities as are afforded 
by this Garden. In the case of Jamaica, however, we have 
a most fortunate source of assistance in the person of Mr. 
William Harris, Superintendent of Hope Gardens, who has 
spent much time during his twenty-five years residence in 
the island in active field work, and has brought to light 
a large number of species new to science, and is more 
familiar than any other person with the flora of Jamaica in 
