56 T O R R E Y A 



active systematists are familiar with these factors from their own daily work. 

 As examples, I may cite my own experience. In 1904, I hopefully prepared a 

 key to the 21 then known Philippine species of Mcdinilla, not realizing what 

 changes would be necessary within a few years, for less than twenty years 

 later, about 125 species of this genus had been described from or accredited 

 to the Philippines. In 1900 there were actually known from the Philippines 

 only 13 species of the Pandanaceae, Freycinetia with 7 species, and Pandamis 

 with 6, of which only one was definitely understood and could be placed in ref- 

 erence to other described species of this genus, five described by Blanco appear- 

 ing in all botanical literature as species ignotae or species ditbiae. Twenty-five 

 years later not only had all of Blanco's "unknown" species been placed, but the 

 total for the family stood at 93 species, Freycinetia 45, Pandamis A7, and 

 Sararanga 1 . This is what has happened in family after family and genus after 

 genus within the present century as comprehensive collections have been 

 assembled from the botanically little known parts of the world such as China, 

 the Philippines, Malaysia outside of Java and to a certain degree the Malay 

 Peninsula, Siam, Indo-China, tropical Africa and tropical America. What is 

 the reaction of local taxonomists, working on a restricted flora, the con- 

 stituent elements of which are well known, in reference to such a work as that 

 of Schlechter*' in which no less than 1 153 new species of orchids are described in 

 one work, and these all from German New Guinea? The area of German New 

 Guinea is 68,500 square miles, and for comparison that of New York State 

 is slightly less than 50,000 square miles. Incidentally, approximately 2500 new 

 species of orchids have been described from the Island of New Guinea since 

 1900. These cited examples merely represent a few that demonstrate the 

 acceleration of what happened within the present century as various parts of 

 the world were opened up to botanical exploration. What happened in various 

 parts of the world happened in the United States when the West was opened up 

 by exploration, and still later when a respectable body of local botanists 

 developed in the West. This is, in part, the basis of the break between Asa 

 Gray and E. L. Greene, for Greene was on the ground and was intimately 

 acquainted with the local flora of California; I say "in part" because there was 

 also an entirely different concept between the two as to what constituted a 

 species. 



It will be a long time yet, at our present rate of progress — which may be 

 greatly slowed down in the coming years — before the imperfectly known 

 regions mentioned above may be considered to be even reasonably well 

 explored. Until this end is attained all treatments of all large groups that 

 have represeiitatives growing in these vast and only partly explored areas can 



•^ Schlechter, R. Die Orchideen von Deutsch-Neu-Guinea. Repert. Sp. Nov. Beih. 

 1: i-lxvi. 1-1079. 1911-14. 



