171 



This paper will shortly be published in full in one of the peri- 

 odicals of the Club. 



" Suggestions for Future Work on the Flowering Plants of the 

 Local Flora," by Dr. Roland M. Harper, chairman of the Phan- 

 erogamic Division of the Committee on the Local Flora.* 



" Exhibition of Specimens Recently Collected in Jamaica, with 

 Remarks," by Dr. N. L. Britton. 



A specimen was exhibited of the nest of the Jamaica swift made 

 from the downy seeds of species of Tillandsia, and presented to 

 the New York Botanical Garden by F. B. Sturridge, Esq., of 

 Union Hill, Moneague, Jamaica. 



Fruits were also shown of the Jamaican species of Hernandia, 

 preserved in formalin, together with herbarium specimens from 

 the same tree, found by Mr. William Harris and myself on the 

 wooded hill near Dolphin Head, a mountain near the western 

 end of Jamaica, and collected March 21, 1908. This tree is one 

 of the largest of the Jamaican forests and apparently either very 

 rare or very local in its distribution. It attains a height of at 

 least 30 meters and a trunk diameter of over a meter. It has 

 not been very definitely known to botanists, inasmuch as Patrick 

 Browne in the " Civil and Natural History of Jamaica," published 

 in 1756, knew of its occurrence there only by rumor, and it is not 

 recorded for Jamaica by Grisebach in the " Flora of the British 

 West Indian Islands." In the treatment of the genus in De 

 Candolle's " Prodromus," Meissner attributes it to Jamaica on 

 the authority of Patrick Browne, but Mr. Harris, in his extensive 

 exploration of the forests of the island, had not been able to find 

 much of it until this discovery near Dolphin Head, where a tree 

 some 20 meters high was cut down and fine fruiting specimens 

 obtained. An examination of these specimens in comparison 

 with those of the other species indicates that the Jamaican tree dif- 

 fers from those of the other West Indies and of the East Indies, 

 and should be defined as a species new to science. 



C, Stuart Gager, 



Secretary. 



* Editor's Note. — This paper is published in full in the present issue and the 

 abstract is therefore omitted. 



