development will accordingly the new flora, in the course of time, 

 show ? To these and other questions in the domain of floristic, 

 oecological and genetical plantgeography botanists hoped to get an 

 answer, not based on guesses, suppositions and possibilities, but 

 on an extensive knowledge of facts, acquired by continuous and 

 accurate research. 



After the excursion to Krakatao by Treub botanists and 

 zoologists have repeatedly visited the island, though with much 

 longer intervals than one would expect, considering the universally 

 acknowledged importance of the problem. Several of those visitors 

 have published the real or supposed results of their investigations. 

 Gradually the botanical litterature on Krakatao has grown rather 

 voluminous but until now the botanical data have not yet been 

 critically sifted and compiled. 



Some criticism, however, does not seem out of place. Botanists 

 sufficiently acquainted with the vegetation of the Dutch East Indies 

 and possessing some insight into geo-botanical problems, must when 

 studying the different publications necessarily come to the conclusion 

 that not only the above-mentioned authors were greatly handicapped 

 by lack of a thorough knowledge of the flora and its behaviour 

 towards the factors of the habitat, but also that both method and 

 intensity of the investigations never were such that they could 

 guarantee the reliability of the results. Moreover, from these results 

 conclusions were not always drawn with the caution required by 

 science. Apparently some authors have been so free as to make 

 quite hazardous guesses. As a rule, the authors have not viewed the 

 work of their predecessors and that of their own with the keen 

 spirit of criticism; consequently the botanical litterature has gained 

 more in quantity than in quality by some of the papers published. 



In this paper I firstly intend to examine whether the basis 

 of discussion of all the authors working on the new flora of Kra- 

 katao vid. the hypothesis of the total destruction of the original 

 flora of the island, is an irrefutably proven fact; in the second 

 place to sum up the positive data thus neglecting the more 

 or less plausible guesses - which in the course of time have been 

 collected about the manner in which the vegetation of Krakatao 

 has been restored; to ascertain the real results of the successive 

 excursions and to conclude which reliable answers they have given 

 to the questions put forward above. But some discussions, partly of 

 a general nature partly more special ones, have to go beforehand. 



