THE USEFUL PLANTS OF THE ISLAND OF GUAM. 



By William Edwin Safford. 



INTRODUCTION. 



ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT WORK, AND 

 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 



During a series of cruises in the Pacific Ocean the routine of my 

 official duties was pleasantly broken b}^ frequent excursions on shore 

 for the purpose of collecting material for the United States National 

 Museum, as well as for recreation. While sitting in native huts and 

 while wading upon coral reefs, traversing forests and climbing moun- 

 tains, I interested myself in taking notes on the languages and customs 

 of the natives, their arts, medicines, food materials and the manner of 

 preparing them, and the origin of their dyes, paints, fibers for fishing 

 nets and lines, materials for mat making and thatching, woods used 

 in constructing their houses and canoes, and gums and resins used in 

 calking. 



In attempting to identify many of the plants entering into their 

 economy, 1 felt the need of some popular work containing the com- 

 mon names of the more important species in various island groups, 

 together with their descriptions and the uses to which they are applied 

 in various parts of the world, the methods of their cultivation, and 

 the processes of preparing the commercial staples which they yield. 

 Some information of this nature may be derived from accounts of mis- 

 sionaries, travelers, and explorers, but our ship's library was woefulty 

 lacking in such works, and much of the information contained in 

 the books which were available was incomplete and untrustworthy. 

 Works of a scientific nature, such as the Botany of the Challenger 

 Expedition, though discussing the geographical distribution of strand 

 plants and the means of their dissemination, I found to contain only 

 lists of names which were useful in comparing island floras, but did 

 not serve in any way to identify the plants in which I was interested. 

 Others, like Seemann's Flora of Fiji, were too rare and expensive to 

 be placed in the library of an ordinary man-of-war, and could be con- 

 sulted only during visits to San Francisco or Honolulu. Moreover, 



