MEMO* 
$1) It hae been suggested tnat botanic work should be 
'centralised upon Kuala Lumpdb# 
A» 
(2) The Director of Museums has endeavoured to make 
a beginning of it th. an endeavour to start a herbarium, ^ 
/(w (j /(*-**- ^ 1\*L4s4 
The Malay Peninsula, is not big enough for two herbaria, 
and the one which Mr* Robinson proposes cannot compete with 
the Singapore herbarium unless advantaged enormously by 
administrative support* Mr* RobinsOn is undoubtedly relying on 
that; and his reliance is warranted by the almost complete 
surrender of interest in MMMMMHT research mphIl by the Colonial 
Government^ in their report to the Colonial Research Committee 
(vide the First Annual Report of tne Committee p. 19). 
Mr. Robinson’s bid for a herbarium is nowever quits un¬ 
justified from tne scientific side: on the one nand it 
does an injustice to Botany by causing its direction by a 
Zoologist; and on the other hand it does a.n injustice by 
splitting herbarium botany from the rest of the science, 
m ji - 1 nib' 1 t i" Herbarium material 
the man who 
U^f 
fr nothing but records for preservation* 
tne living plant rather than the record 
i jBKr 4»^ JL/m+AJ** OmJ UAfts. 
/ is looked down on by the true scientist; im i le at tne ( « w a 
it is easy to sea that the greatest advances in^Botany 
have come from institutions sucn as Kew where the living 
is studied 
I consider that no proposal for transferring the Singapoy^ 
herbarium to Kuala Lunpar should come up apart from a 
local 
proposal to establisn G X botanic garden under* tne same 
charge* 
1 nave already outlined a scneme for a string of gardens 
down the Peninsula under a Gardens Department and have 
laid it for discussioh before Mr#XjewtQn* , xix i «&iri and Mr* 
■^arnard* with whom were also Dr# TToxworthy , Mr® Bunting ^nd 
Mr* Milsum; and the only way in which I dipart from the 
Vu*t4 
scheme is that I *©/more ready to 
