NARRATIVE 



The geographical position of Cape Sable, lying as it 

 does at the southern extremity of Florida, had long indi- 

 cated the necessity of exploration in connection with our 

 studies on the flora of that state. Such exploration was 

 apt to prove especially important in a number of ways. 

 The region was little known. No botanist had visited it 

 since A. P. Garber/ A. H. Curtiss,- and J. H. Simpson^ 



1 Abram Paschall Garber was born February 23, 1838, at Co- 

 lumbia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He was a graduate of 

 Lafayette College (1868), and studied medicine at the University 

 of Pennsylvania (M.D., 1872). Compelled by ill health to seek 

 a warm climate, he went to southern Florida about 1877, and 

 spent several years there, devoting much attention to the collec- 

 tion of plants in that hitherto little-known region. He also col- 

 lected in Porto Rico in 1880. In 1881 he returned to Pennsyl- 

 vania, where he died, at Renovo, in Clinton County, on the 26th 

 of August of that year. — John Hendley Barnhart. 



2 Allen Hiram Curt'iss, well known as a collector of the plants 

 of the southeastern United States, was born at Central Square, 

 Oswego County, New York, February 9, 1845. His earlier col- 

 lections were in Virginia, but from 1875 until 1901 he confined 

 his attention very largely to Florida; his first collections from 

 the southern part of the peninsula seem to date from about 1880. 

 Beginning with 1902, he devoted his time chiefly to collecting in 

 the West Indies. He died at Jacksonville, Florida, September i, 

 1907.— J. H. B. 



3 Joseph Herman Simpson was born January 9. 1841, near Tis- 

 kilwa. Bureau County, Illinois. He became thoroughly familiar 

 with the flora of Bureau County and vicinity before his removal 

 to what is now Bradentown, Manatee County, Florida, in April, 

 1882. He afterward collected in various parts of southern 

 Florida, most of his trips away from home being made in the 



7 



