The Subaerial and Freshwater Algal Flora of the Tropics

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EVER attracted since numerous Botany became specialists, an independent who have dealt science with the one tropics or other have tra ted numerous specialists, who h ve dealt i one or ther aspect of the tropical flora. These regions of the world provide so many striking problems, that many of them, although subsequently recognized as evident enough in our parts of the world* were first noticed and studied in the tropics. The science of ecology in particular received its first stimulus from tropical observation, and until quite recent years we were better informed about the conditions of vegetation in many parts of the tropics than in our own country. At a fairly early period we find botanists devoting a little attention to the tropical algal flora, but the apparent similarity between the freshwater Algae of the tropics and those of our parts did not encourage extensive observation in view of the numerous more striking problems to be solved. It was only in the seventies and eighties of the last century that a marked tendency became evident to collect more extensive data regarding tropical Algae, and this has since then led to the publication of quite a number of algal floras from diverse parts of the tropics. The latter are mainly due to the labours of Nordstedt, Lagerheim, W. and G. S. West, Schmidle, Mobius, De Wildeman, and Lemmermann, although, as the bibliography at the end of this paper will show, a large number of botanists are responsible for occasional papers on this subject. The general result of this work has been to show that there is a great degree of similarity between the algal flora of the tropics and that of other parts of the world. This is indeed what was to be expected in view of the fact that most of the Algae belong to the biological group of aquatics, and