The opening of Preface
ALTHOUGH this volume contains a great amount of original material, I am largely indebted to the labours of my predecessors for its present form; and a scheme that at first was limited only to my own observations in the Pacific has gradually extended itself to the general subject of plant-dispersal. The farther I proceeded in my work the more I realised that the floras of the Pacific islands are of most interest in their connections, and that the problems affecting them are problems concerning the whole plant-world. Deprived of the writings of Seemann, Hillebrand, Drake del Castillo, and other botanists, several of whom have lived and died in the midst of their studies of these floras, and without the aid of the works of Hemsley and Schimper, generalisers who have mainly cleared the way for the systematic study of plant-distribution and plant-dispersal, it would not have been possible for me to accomplish such an undertaking.