1-1 MISC. PUBLICATION 4 01. U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTTEE 



Virgin Islands (formerly Danish TTest Indies: St. Thomas. St. John. 



nd Sr. Croix), Anguilla. Dutch West Indies (St. Martin. St. 

 Eustatius. Saba i . Guadeloupe. Martinique, and St. Vincent. There 

 are also comparatively ancient lists of the plants of St. Bartholomew 



15:26] and Barbados (1545). The others, including such sizable 

 islands as Barbuda. St. Christopher, Nevis. Antigua. Montserrat. 

 Dominica. St. Lucia, and Grenada, are covered only by Grisebaeh's 

 inclusive and now rather out-of-date Flora of the British West 

 Indian Islands 1 1559-64 | and his list of plants of the Lesser Antilles 



1557). The greatest gap in the botanical literature of the West 

 Indies, however, is the lack of any flora of Cuba since the relatively 

 ancient lists of Grisebach (1866) and Sauvalle (1573). both based 

 primarily on Charles Wright's collections. 



SvUTH America. — Of the 14 units 1 13 countries and Patagonia, 

 treated separately for convenience | . only 4 possess recent and es- 

 sentially complete lists of vascular plants — Patagonia (Maeloskie. 

 -14. an annotated list with keys and brief descriptions ) . Surinam 

 i list by Pulle. 1906. as well as his descriptive flora, still in proc ss 

 of publication), Uruguay (list by Herter. 1930. with subsequent addi- 

 tions | . and Venezuela (list by Knuth. 1926-28). Reiche's descrip- 

 tive Flora de Chile 1596-1911). in itself not too trustworthy, was 

 left incomplete before reaching the end of the dicotyledons, and Gay's 

 earlier flora 1 154-5-54) is now completely out of date. A descriptive 

 :: i a of Peru, by Macbride and collaborators, Is now in course of 

 publication. Martins 1 Fk>ra Brasiliensis 1 1 540-1'. ■'■ 6), the neatest 

 of all published floras both in actual size and in number of species 



es xibed, befitting the country whose flora is the richest hi the world. 

 is in great part too old to be of much more than historical value. 



None of the seven remaining countries has even a comprehensive 

 list of species, with the exception of that for British Guiana, now 

 almost a century old. For Argentina, the chief sources are Grise- 

 baeh's two lists : L874 an I 1879, based on the collections of Lorentz. 

 Hieronymus, and Sehiekendantz. and the catalog by Hauman and 

 others, which reaches only to the Droseraceae i Engler and Prantl 

 system) and of which no new part has appeared since 1923: there 

 are. however, numerous local lists and papers on medicinal and 

 ly plants. Bolivia has only the lists of plants collected by 

 Busby. Bang. Herzog, Buchtien. and R. S. Williams. Our knowledge 

 of the general flora of British Guiana rests almost entirely on the 

 Llections of Robert and Richard Schomburgk, made about a cen- 

 tury ago and worked up principally by Bentham. then listed by 

 Richard Schomburgk in 1545 in a form not easy to consult: there 

 are several papers on Mount Roraima and a recent flora by Graham 

 of the Kartabo region, with keys and brief descriptions. 



Colombia and Ecuador, of all South American countries, are the 

 most incompletely represented in florlstic literature. Both are highly 

 mountainous, with great numbers of endemic species, but the only 

 available general floras, in both cases never completed, date from 

 the >• '-. and there are no real local floras. French Guiana has 

 had no general flora, although the woods and useful plants are well 

 covei I the chief sources for knowledge of the flora are Sagot's 



very fragmentary list and Benoist's list of his own collections. For 

 Paraguay, the principal basis is Chodat's account of Hassler's col- 



