Description: The following families are already revised and will be included in Flora Malesiana vol. 4, part 1 which is made ready for the press: Aceraceae, Actinidiaceae s.str., Alangiaceae, Ancistrocladaceae Aponogetonaceae, Burmanniaceae, Geratophyllaceae, Cochlospermaceae, Hydrocaryaceae, Juncaginaceae, Moringaceae, Myoporaceae, Nyssaceae, Philydraceae, Plumbaginaceae, Podostemonaceae Sarcospermaceae, Sphenocleaceae, Stackhkousiaceae, Styracaceae, Trigoniaceae, Zygophyllaceae.

Description: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, Mass. The Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. U.S. National Herbarium, Smithonian Institution, Washington, DC. New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx Park, Fordham Br.P.O., N.Y. Bot. Gardens, Ann. Arbor, Mich. University of California, Department of Botany, Berkeley, Cal. Field museum of natural History, Department of Botany, Chicago, Ill. Great Britain. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew-Surrey (except types) British Museum, Natural History, Bot. Department, Cromwell Road, London SW & Botany School, Cambridge.

Description: Mr C.T. White is to be congratulated on being presented with, the Mueller Memorial Medal awarded by the Adelaide Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Aug. 1946. This award is in recognition of his work on the systematic botany of Queensland. Dr Ir J.Ph. Pfeiffer, Director of Research, B.P.M.-lab., Amsterdam, died Nov. 18, 1947, at Amsterdam, 58 years old. He was formerly wood-technologist, and collected plants in Simaloer Island, NW Sumatra.

Description: Bignoniaceae. Dr van Steenis is wording on a revision of the Malaysian Bignoniaceae for Flor. Mal.. Burmanniaceae. Dr F.P. Jonker, Herbarium, & Museum voor Systematische Botanie, Lange Nieuwstraat 106, Utrecht, Holland, is preparing a new revision of the Burmanniaceae for Fl. Mal.

Description: Index Kewensis. Suppl. 10. (1936-1940). Clarendon Press, Oxford, £4/4. (1947). Check List of British vascular plants (Journ. Ecol. 33 (1946) 308-347). Nomenclature accepted by the Brit. Ecol. Soc. to uniformize the binary names used for British plants.

Description: Bakhuizen van den Brink, Jr, R.C.: Een bijdrage tot de kennis van de Melastomataceae van den Maleischen Archipel in het bijzonder van die van Nederlandsch-Indië. Thesis. Gouda 1943, VIII 31 pp. (in Dutch). Extract from the general and critical parts of the extensive study; no latin descriptions.

Description: Mr R.E. Holttum, Director of the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, who was on leave in England from July to mid-November, reported that Mr C.X. Furtado has returned to Singapore and is working on the genus Calamus as part of his revision of the Palmae of the Malay Peninsula. Mr Holttum ’aims at getting a revised Flora of the Malay Peninsula written, of which he himself will be responsible for most of the Monocotyledones except Aroids and Palms. Mr M.R. Henderson is working on some families of Dicotyledones. This Flora must be fuller than Ridley’s, and with sufficient introductory matter and illustrations to make it intelligible to the ordinary resident who is prepared to take soms interest in local plants’. Mr Holttum will retire in 1950; he will then devote his time to revise Flora Malesiana, series II, Pteridophyta. Mr Holttum spent a fortnight in Holland, in October, and discussed the contributions to Flora Malesiana which can be prepared at Singapore on the basis of mutual cooperation. Dr A.J.G.H. Kostermans has been appointed Forest Botanist in the Forest Experiment Station, Buitenzorg, Java. He has resumed his studies on the Malaysian Lauraceae.

Description: Flora of Java. Dr C.A. Backer has been working towards the composition of a Dutch-written Flora of Java since about 1903, at first in Java, and onwards of 1931 in Holland. When the war started it was thought safer to mimeograph the MS. as far as it was finished, in order to save the writers’ labours against the chance of complete destruction by bombing or other causes. Prof. Dr H.J. Lam managed to get a number of subscribers and funds for a mimeograph edition. This constitures the ”Nooduitgave” (emergency edition) in which up till now 120 families have appeared in 7 folio volumes. The edition was limited to ca 25 copies. It is the intention to edit 2 volumes more, and then stop it. Circumstances necessitate the printed edition to be written in English to which the author has now consented, and which he will manage himself, Prof. Lam also succeeded in getting a number of temporary cooperators who have assisted Dr Backer in revising some families, viz. Dr A.D.J. Meeuse, A.G.L. Adelbert, and R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr, whilst the specialists Dr J. Wasscher, Dr S.J. van Ooststroom and Miss Dr G.J.H. Amshoff and the late Prof. Dr B.H. Danser made contributions. She revisions are now nearing completion. Only very few families, mostly sympetalous, are not yet finished. The flora will include the Pteridophytes (more than 500 in Java) and through the consent of Mrs Smith also the Orchidaceae (ca 700!); the latter will be revised on the basis of the MS. revision left by the late Dr J.J. Smith. In the emergency edition practically all synonyms have been omitted for brevity’s sake. It is to be hoped that they will be re-inserted in the scientific edition now aimed at. Endless labours have been spent in identifying the species described under various names, and to a certain extent these synonyms have shaped the specific delimitations and argumentate the present conceptions. They can be omitted in a concise popular flora, but not in the work now prepared. It has taken a long way to reach the present state to account for the flora of Java, but we are sure that the work will certainly be the most valuable contribution towards the flora of Java ever made, as its author possesses an unsurpassed field knowledge combined with a very critical taxonomical point of view.

Description: We are glad to be able to add to the list of herbaria which have agreed to send on loan herbarium specimens to collaborators of the Flora Malesiana: Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Sandakan, British North Borneo. Mr H.G. Keith, Conservator of Forests is in charge. Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Lae, Territory of New Guinea. Mr J.S. Womersley, Forest Botanist, is in charge (see p. 61).

Description: Dr C.A. Backer is now preparing the MS. on the Orchidaceae for the Flora of Java on the basis of a MS. by the late Dr J.J. Smith. Mr J. Monachino has finished his revision of the genus Alstonia (Apoc.); it is expected to be published early in 1949 in ”Pacific Science”, Hawaii.