XVIII. METEOROLOGICAL RECORDS 
31. The swing of much above average and much below average rainfalF 
continues. Unusually dry 1963 (67 inches) was followed by unusually wet 
1964 (122 inches) and a relatively dry 1965 (78 inches). The Bukit Timah 
recording station again registered more rainfall than at the Gardens (83 inches 
against 78 inches). January, the wettest month over the previous 51 years, 
with an average rainfall of 11.05 inches, was easily the driest month of the 
year with under one inch of rain recorded at the Gardens office and similarly 
low records at the other recording points. For details see Appendices II to V. 
XIX. CONFERENCES 
32. Dr. Chew Wee-Lek attended the opening of the new Lae Herbarium- 
by Sir George Taylor, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and 
thereafter the symposium organised by U.N.E.S.C.O. on Herbarium Methods,, 
in Lae, New Guinea from 9th to 18th April, 1965. On his return journey, 
he stoped briefly at Brisbane to visit the Queensland Herbarium, and at 
Sydney the New South Wales Herbarium. 
33. Dr. Chew also attended the U.N.E.S.C.O.-sponsored Symposium on 
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources held in Bangkok 27th 
November to 9th December, at which he presented a paper on “Need for 
Conservation of Habitats”. 
BOTANICAL RESEARCH 
XX. PLANT COLLECTING 
34. Field work in major collecting expeditions was very much limited 
by the necessity of retaining all hands at headquarters in order to attack 
the arrears of curatorial work arising through the years of difficult working 
conditions in the old herbarium, and the relief of these by herbarium 
reconstruction carried out in 1964. (Annual Report 1964, para. 10.) Only one 
expedition of over a week was undertaken by the herbarium staff when 
the Herbarium Assistant and a collector joined forces with two members of 
the Horticultural Division for a joint botanical-horticultural foray into a 
number of localities in Perak. Three expeditions of lesser duration were also 
undertaken — two by the Director, to the coastal area Negri Sembilan and 
northern Malacca between Cape Rachado (Tanjong Tuan) and Tanjong 
Bidarah in February, and to the Bako National Park Sarawak in September, 
and one by Mr. Hardial Singh, Botanist, in another joint botanical-horticultural 
expedition to Penang Hill and to Maxwell’s Hill, Perak, in early March. 
Details of these are given in the Appendix VI. Many single day trips were 
made into the Singapore Nature Reserves, elsewhere on Singapore Island 
and into South Johore. 
9 
Wise 
