November 10, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



667 



special characters of the plant or its parts. 

 The botanist who utilizes this large collection 

 for the purpose of writing a local flora must 

 himself go into the field and to a large degree 

 determine anew the special data that should 

 have been accumulating during the past forty 

 years regarding the special characters of each 

 individual species found in the area covered 

 by the collection. To-day nobody can deter- 

 mine what original notes were made by the 

 various collectors, and unquestionably obser- 

 vations or notes were made when most or all 

 of the specimens .were actually collected. 



In a much larger collection of exotic plants, 

 a collection still apparently rich in species as 

 yet undescribed, and a collection in which at 

 least 75 per cent, of the sheets represent orig- 

 inal collections, less than 8 per cent, of the 

 sheets bear any data whatever other than the 

 conventional Latin name (so far as the ma- 

 terial is identified), collector, locality and date 

 of collection. 



In a third collection, a herbarium of eco- 

 nomic plants, presenting chiefly those species 

 actually cultivated for agricultural or horticul- 

 tural purposes, on a basis of 1,000 sheets ex- 

 amined, less than 3 per cent, of the sheets pre- 

 sent any data regarding the plants themselves. 

 It is estimated that at least 95 per cent, of this 

 herbarium represents original collections. 



In contrast to the above three herbaria I 

 wish to cite the one in which I am especially 

 interested, the contrast of which has led me 

 to prepare this paper, and that is the her- 

 barium of the Bureau of Science in Manila. 

 In this herbarium there are now approximately 

 160,000 mounted sheets, of which about 100,- 

 000 are Philippine, the remainder chiefly from 

 surrounding regions. The extra-Philippine 

 material, except that collected by employees of 

 the Bureau of Science, as to special data re- 

 corded with the specimens, is quite like similar 

 material received in exchange by other insti- 

 tutions. Taking into consideration only the 

 Philippine material, approximately 75,000 

 sheets, or 75 per cent, of this part of the her- 

 barium, present special data regarding the 

 plants themselves recorded on field labels of 

 one type or another. These field labels were 



filled out when the plants were collected, were 

 placed with the specimens in press, remained 

 with the specimens through all processes until 

 the mounted sheet was distributed into the 

 herbarium, and the accumulated data thus re- 

 corded has added immensely to the value of 

 the herbarium. The notes with the specimens 

 represent the combined field observations of 

 perhaps 100 different American and Filipino 

 collectors, and the botanist working with this 

 material has at once available a great mass of 

 information that is not to be found at all in 

 the average herbarium, and information that 

 no single collector could possibly secure in any 

 reasonable time. The herbarium is what it 

 ought to be, an index to the various aspects of 

 Philippine botany from both an economic and 

 a scientific standpoint. It is consulted not 

 only by systematic botanists, but also by for- 

 esters, agriculturists, horticulturists, philolo- 

 gists and others interested in the economic as- 

 pects of botany. 



In a very few European herbaria field labels 

 have been used for a number of years, but in 

 general their great utility has been quite over- 

 looked by botanists, collectors and curators of 

 herbaria, and in most herbaria are quite un- 

 known. Every European field label I have 

 seen presents what I consider to be serious de- 

 fects either in form, in size or in indicated 

 data to be recorded. From my early work in 

 the United States Department of Agriculture 

 I was familiar with the types of labels used for 

 field work in the Division of Agrostology, 

 which were sometimes attached to the mounted 

 sheets, and sometimes not; these labels had a 

 fatal defect in that the attempt was made to 

 combine a field label with a herbarium label, 

 and their use was eventually abandoned. In 

 establishing the botanical work in the Philip- 

 pines in the year 1902 I was immediately im- 

 pressed with the necessity of recording data 

 about the plants themselves in such form that 

 it could be recorded with the mounted speci- 

 mens. The first field label adopted was exceed- 

 ingly crude and experience on a single field 

 trip proved that it was utterly unadapted to 

 the purpose in view. In the meantime, how- 

 ever, I became acquainted with the forms de- 



