﻿INVENTORY OF SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED 

 BY THE OFFICE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT 

 INTRODUCTION DURING THE PERIOD FROM 

 OCTOBER 1 TO DECEMBER 31, 1918 (NO. 57; NOS. 

 46588 TO 46950). 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



It might appear that a single one of these inventories contains 

 enough experimental plant material to keep a corps of scientists busy 

 for years. This is true, but the fact should not be lost sight of that 

 these are new plants introduced for the use of an increasing number 

 of amateurs of a great countr}\ There are already 10,000 more or 

 less trained experimenters scattered from Alaska to southern Florida 

 who will look over the plants which are described here and wonder 

 if some particular one may not add to his list of field or garden or 

 dooryard plants. The work of testing a new plant requires years, 

 land, money, and individual interest and attention ; and the only way 

 to do the work rapidly is to enlist the intelligent cooperation of a 

 great many people. 



A great many tropical species are represented here, and those who 

 live in the North may wonder at this. It must not be forgotten that 

 the plants which grow in the colder regions are those which have, by 

 slow adaptation to the cold, crept out of the Tropics, and that there 

 are ten times as many undiscovered useful plants remaining in the 

 Tropics to-day as are to be found in the colder regions of the globe. 

 The plant breeder is striving by means of his art to select the hardiest 

 of these tropical species and adapt them for cultivation as far north 

 as they will grow. This is a great field for research. 



With the exception of a collection made by Wilson Popenoe in 

 Mexico, all of the plants here described have come in from foreign 

 friends of the work or through direct solicitation by correspond- 

 ence. 



Mr. Popenoe's collection covered by Nos. 46781 to 46787 includes 

 the ilama. a rose-tinted fruit, which belongs in the class with the cheri- 

 moya and sugar-apple and is remotely related to the hardy papaw 

 of the eastern United States (Asimina triloba). In view of the fact 

 that triple hybrids combining three species of the genus Annona 



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