2s Mig 5 ill 
58 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
should always be verified by cumulative testimony and a consensus 
of the most intelligent opinion obtainable. : 
ECONOMIC PLANTS IMPERFECTLY KNOWN. es 
Owing partly to the fact that some of the botanists who have writ- 
ten most extensively on the West Indian flora have earefully avoided 
reference to the uses of the plants they studied, our knowledge of the 
economic plants of the West Indies is still in a very fragmentary 
condition. Moreover, a considerable amount of the existing litera- 
ture is now out of date and unreliable on account of the uncertainty 
attaching to many of the names used by the earlier semipopular 
writers. The British West Indies have received the most attention, 
and the French islands are second in the amount of printed informa- 
tion. On the Cuban flora, as well, a considerable body of literature 
exists, in comparison with the extreme paucity of scientific informa- 
tion regarding Porto Rico. The island has not attracted, to any con- 
siderable extent, the interest of European or American naturalists, and 
the local prosecution of study received only negative encouragement. 
Although the area is small, the topography is so compleated and 
the climatic and other conditions so varied that anything like an 
exhaustive knowledge of the wild plants will be very difficult to obtain. 
In the case of the cultivated economic species the same difficulty of 
extreme localization isapparent. Plant introduction has been carried 
on only in an extremely desultory manner. Transportation is diffi- 
eult, and the numerous towns have had connection, for much of the 
time, only by sea, so that the dissemination even of successful species 
has been slow and difficult. 
It is manifestly impossible to enter to best advantage upon the task 
of improving agricultural conditions in Porto Rico without more ade- 
quate knowledge of the nature and results of past experiments, and 
it would be useless and wasteful to reintroduce species already growing 
in the island except where superior varieties can be secured. 
MATERIALS INCLUDED AND ARRANGEMENT OF LIST. 
This paper includes miscellaneous information on the principal 
cultivated plants of Porto Rico, brief notes on many of the minor 
economic plants, and a list of all the native names of plants which 
have thus far been recorded from the island, with references to the 
scientific names of the species to which they are applied as far as these 
have been determined. As there are no botanical publications in 
either English or Spanish which give an even approximately complete 
treatment of the flora, it is believed that the present list of names and 
the brief notes accompanying will be found of use both to visitors and 
to residents of the island. 
Owing to the fact that the same name is often applied to similar 
though botanically distinct species, and that various hames are used 
