IV 



floristic study designed to serve these various ends. With 



furtherin 



the purposes 



mentioned it was resolved, fifteen years ago, to undertake in 

 the museums at Kew the preparation of a manual based on this 

 Flora which might enable those using it to concentrate their 



yield 



African plant 



When 



it was decided that an attempt to cover the whole of the area 

 served by the Flora was uncalled for. So far as the eastern half 



Afric 



known 



East Africa, alive to the advantage of such a work, had already 

 arranged for the preparation of an economic survey of the 

 vegetation of that colony issued in 1895 and based on the floristic 

 results pubHshed by Kew. This action synchronised with the 

 less systematic efforts of Belgian authors to indicate the economic 

 vegetable resources of the Congo State and only followed the 

 example set by the Conde de Ficalho in 1884 when he pubHshed 

 his Planfas uteis da Africa Portugueza, a work partly inspired 

 by the information given by R. Brown in 1818 in an appendix 

 to the narrttive by Captain Tuckey of an expedition to explore 

 the Biver Zaire. 



Kenya are concerned. 



aland, Ugai 

 interested 



economic vegetable i^roducts of their districts already had 

 assistance at their command and that the first duty of the estab- 

 lishment at Kew was rather to provide for the needs of their 

 West African colleagues. The further question as to whether 

 the projected work for West Africa should endeavour to deal 

 with the vegetable resources of all the British Colonies there 

 or be limited to some particular dependency was largely 

 determined by the circumstances that Mr. J. H. HoUand, 

 Assistant in the Museums at Kew, was the officer who responded 

 to the invitation to undertake the task. Mr. Holland's African 

 service had been rendered wholly in Nigeria, and the full 

 utilisation of his first-hand knowledge of the vegetation of that 

 important Dependency made it desirable that he should limit 

 his attention to the economic vegetable resources of that 

 Colony. To the fulfilment of this task Mr. Holland has devoted 

 the bulk of his non-official time for the past sixteen years : Part 

 I. was pubUshed in 1908, Part H. in 1911 and Part HI. in 1915, 

 At this stage His Majesty's Government found it necessary to 

 suspend the pubhcation of Part IV., which comi^letes the work. 



the interval that separates the 



This embargo, which explains 



and IV., has now been 



known that officers administerin 



I Leone find The Useful Plants of Nigeria as helpful to 

 heir Nyasaland colleagues find Ficalho 's Plantas uteis 

 olleagues in Uganda and Kenya find Die Pflanzenwelt 



-Afrikas. 

 iFeb. 1922. 



D. Prai:c^. 



