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library of the Manila Botanical Garden vanished in the interval. 

 The loss of the herbaria was most serious, as they contained 

 all the type material that existed belonging to resident botanists. 

 Many of the plants had been wrongly identified with allied 

 species from India, the Malay Islands, Australia, South Amer- 

 ica, or even West Africa and eastern North America, and many 

 well-meant efforts to straighten out some of the tangles have 

 failed, both through the deficiencies or absence of description 

 by the Spaniards and the want of Philippine material by the 

 European monographer. 



This work has been resolutely undertaken by the Bureau of 

 Government Laboratories, now incorporated in the Bureau of 

 Science, under Mr. E. D. Merrill, and. by that of Forestry under 

 Captain Ahern, aided by numerous assistants, of whom Elmer, 

 Whitford, Copeland, Barnes and Borden have so far been the 

 chief, their collections to the present totaling at least 13,000 num- 

 bers. Mr. Merrill has given special attention to the identification 

 of Blanco's plants, has worked up several important families, de- 

 scribing many species, and thus accomplished very much towards 

 placing the matter on a more satisfactory footing. Duplicates of 

 their earlier collections were sent to Berlin, and descriptions of 

 those of them and others already there, which belong to some 

 important families, have been published by Miss Perkins with 

 the collaboration of several German botanists. Professor Under- 

 wood has published a valuable summary of the ferns, and Dr. 

 Copeland has written papers upon the same group and the fungi. 

 The energetic work thus done has already had most pleasing 

 results, and Mr. Merrill in particular is to be congratulated upon 

 the transformation effected in so short a time. 



Probably the largest collections yet made by a non-resident, as 

 well as the best preserved, were sent home to this Garden by Mr. 

 R. S. Williams, in the course of the last two years, from the 

 islands of Luzon, Mindanao, and Jolo, and owing to the care 

 lavished upon them all reached this city in beautiful condition. 

 The numbers reach 3,126, representing probably 2,800 species, 

 many of them undescribed, belonging in several instances to 

 genera not yet recorded as Philippine. They comprise flowering 



