20 



RUMPHIUS'S HERBARIUM AMBOINENSE 



left no notes regarding the general character and appearance of 

 the plant life of Amboina. However, a brief, general description 

 has been given by Karsten.* The general appearance of the 

 vegetation is apparently the same as that of similar regions in 

 the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines, not subject to a 

 prolonged dry season, where the original vegetation has not 

 been entirely destroyed by man. 



THE GENESIS OF THE PLAN AND THE BOTANICAL EXPLORATION OF 



AMBOINA 



The logical and simple plan of exploring Amboina with the 

 special object of collecting and studying the Rumphian species 

 in their native habitat in connection with all data given by 

 Rumphius, while perhaps conceived by other botanists, has previ- 

 ously been carried into effect only by the late Dr. J. G. Boerlage 

 of the botanic garden at Buitenzorg. In 1900 Doctor Boerlage, 

 accompanied by Dr. J. J. Smith, made a trip to Amboina for the 

 explicit purpose of collecting in the classical localities the plants 

 described by Rumphius, more especially material represent- 

 ing those species on which binomials of later authors had 

 been based. Most unfortunately Doctor Boerlage contracted a 

 fever while in Amboina, which resulted in his death at Ternate, 

 August 25, 1900, while returning to Java, with the consequence 

 that the results of his field work were never made available. 

 Unquestionably, many botanists who have visited Amboina 

 and carried on field work there have realized that it was a clas- 

 sical locality in Malayan botany and that botanical specimens 

 from that island would be of special value in interpreting Rumph- 

 ian species, yet no single large collection has ever been made 

 in Amboina of which the duplicates were given a wide distribu- 

 tion, so that the general results of previous botanical work in 

 Amboina have not been available to many botanists who have 

 had occasion to discuss Rumphian species. While the present 

 consideration of the species described and figured in the Her- 

 barium Amboinense is of necessity incomplete, and doubtless 

 errors in interpretation have been committed both in reference 

 to Rumphian species and to binomials, yet it is felt that the 

 work, somewhat in the nature of an innovation in systematic 

 botany, is a step in advance and that it should prove to be merely 

 preliminary to more intensive field work in relation to the same 



* Morphologische und biologische Untersuchungen iiber einige Epiphy- 

 tenformen der Molukken. Ann. Jard. Bot. Buitenzorg 12 (1895) 117-195, 

 t. 18-19. 



