8 MISC. PUBLICATION 4 01, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



(with Stewart Island), Tasmania, and the small islands immediately 

 off Australia under Australasia; Cedros, Guadalupe, Kevillagigedo, 

 Socorro, Tres Marias, and a few smaller islands under Mexico; 

 Fernando Po, Sao Thome (St. Thomas) with Principe, and Zanzibar 

 under Africa; West Indies under North America. The remaining 

 islands, forming the section Insular Floras of this list, are divided 

 somewhat arbitrarily into three groups: Atlantic Ocean islands, be- 

 tween 70° west and 20° east longitude (Greenwich meridian) ; Indian 

 Ocean islands (including Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal), between 

 20° and about 95° east longitude, terminating with the Nicobar 

 Islands (but including Christmas Island and Keeling or Cocos 

 Islands) ; and the Pacific Ocean islands, from about 95° east to 

 70° west longitude, including all the Dutch East Indies from 

 Sumatra eastward, with the small islands immediately south of 

 them. The islands in the Mediterranean Sea, except those belonging 

 to Africa, will be treated in the second part of this work. 



The examination and annotation of several thousand publications 

 has brought to attention so many common faults and omissions in 

 the preparation of floristic papers that some comments will not be 

 out of place. The essential features of even the barest list of plants 

 include a title accurately describing its contents; the most definite 

 possible statement of the geographical area covered, with reference, 

 in the case of small or obscure localities, to the distance and direction 

 from some locality that can be found on any reasonably detailed map, 

 supplemented, particularly in the case of oceanic islands, by details 

 of latitude and longitude; and a statement of the material on which 

 the list is based, whether the author's collections or observations 

 alone or all published or unpublished information. Any list that 

 attempts to represent the known flora of a region should include also 

 a statistical summary, not necessarily detailed, of the number of 

 species included, preferably divided among the vascular cryptogams, 

 gymnosperms, monocotyledons, and dicotyledons, with similar figures 

 for at least the larger families, and a bibliography in which the titles 

 and references are given accurately and in full, not merely to the 

 volume of a work or periodical or the first page of a paper. 



Additional items that add greatly to the value of a flora include 

 accounts of the topography, hydrography, climate, geology, and 

 soils; botanical explorations and list of collectors, with full names 

 and some biographical information; list of herbaria in which speci- 

 mens are deposited ; general and special features of vegetation, ecology, 

 phytogeography, life zones, endemic species; notes on native and 

 cultivated useful plants; local vernacular names; lists of doubtful 

 and excluded species, with reference to previous publications; a 

 gazetteer of localities, particularly those not to be found in ordinary 

 atlases, supplemented, if possible, by a map ; a list of botanical names 

 first published in the work; and an index. An estimate of the rela- 

 tive completeness of the work may well be added, and, if circum- 

 stances warrant, some account of conditions affecting botanical 

 collecting, such as methods of transportation, available accommoda- 

 tion, and so on. The inclusion or omission of keys, descriptions, 

 references, and synonymy depends on the purpose for which the 

 publication is intended and on the availability of such information 

 in other publications. Authors of works dealing with regions not cov- 



