
          NEW PLANT INTRODUCTIONS
1920-1921.

Introductory Note.

This Catalogue describes many species or varieties of
newly Introduced foreign plants, most of which have not been
grown in this country. Our knowledge of them is consequently
very limited and we cannot predict their behavior with the
certainty possible with standard seeds and plants.

These newly introduced plants have been imported for
trial because of some direct or indirect use which It is be-
lieved can be made of them by Americans. They are introduced
primarily for use by experts of the United States Department
of Agriculture and the State experiment stations of the coun-
try, but many of them will be available to such private ex-
perimenters as have the necessary facilities and desire to
test them. Since these plants must be grown by private indi-
viduals before their commercial value is determined, private
experimenters who test them are assisting in a very practical
way in the plant introduction work of the country.

A new plant industry often arises through the success
of some private individual in demonstrating the adaptability
of an introduced plant to the soil and climatic conditions of
a region.

The plants imported by the United States Department of
Agriculture through this Office are in most cases so little
known to experimenters that their scientific or even their
common names alone would convey little Idea of their char-
acter. To distribute them under a name simply , depending upon
the experimenter to look them up in a catalogue, entails a
burden upon the investigator which often results, at the end
of the year, in his being Ignorant of the uses of the new
plant. To enable the experimenter at any time to refresh his
memory as to the use of any one of these introductions, spe-
cial labels have been devised upon which is printed a con-
densed description of the plant. These descriptive labels are
attached to the plants when they are sent out. The informa-
tion on these labels consists of: the Seed and Plant Intro-
duction (S.P.I.) number, under which the plants are known at
all times; the scientific name; a common name (when one has
been adopted for this country); a brief description of the
plant with its uses; and, where possible, a suggestion of the
general region to which the plant is likely to be adapted.

In some Instances few or no plants of the S. P. I. num-
ber given with the description may be available for distri-
bution, but in such instances plants of the same species and
variety under another introduction number may be substituted.
        