Editorial

I must apologize that this Bulletin appears late. Material had been assembled for it and I had anticipated to compose this number about Christmas 1971. But on my birthday, 31 Oct. 1971, it was announced as a complete surprise that the firm of Brill was authorised to publish a book on the Javanese Mountain Flora of which the core is 57 hand-coloured plates on which 456 different species are depicted. The fieldwork was done, and drawings were composed in 1939-1941. After the war no publisher could be found; a precursor with 4 plates appeared in Endeavour (21, 1962, 183-193). The condition attached to this allowance was that I should promise stante pede to deliver the text by end December 1971 or at least as soon as possible, because the promotors of the plan intended to present me with the printed book on the occasion of my retiring from office, 1 Sept. 1972. So the rather peculiar situation arose that I had to make my own present. With my already tight time schedule for my last year of office I hesitatingly agreed. The available text was, however, very incomplete, having been written in the war prison camp, thirty years ago. Moreover it was at that time intended to be very popular for a pocket size atlas, as Schröter’s ’Pflanzenführer fur Alpenwanderer’ which had stood model for the purpose. With the generous life-size plates and folio format book now envisaged to edit, this text had to be completely rewritten in much enlarged scope and all captions carefully checked with the present literature and with the herbarium. Though the plates are explained by the captions, the general text also needed illustration and so figures had to be made or selected and photographs sorted. I had to give this project absolute priority. Notwithstanding the most liberal assistance rendered to me by my senior staff members, to whom I could entrust several time-consuming official duties, the composition of the text was real slave labour for seven days a week until late for five months. The captions were delivered end January, the general text May 22nd. The colour plates are printed and come out magnificently, practically as good as the original water-colour drawings, and the captions are by now in page proof, so that I hope the work will indeed be printed early September and available in October. Publication of Flora Malesiana proceeds well. In April 1971 the third instalment of the Fern volume appeared (Lindsaea-group by Dr. Kramer) and the text for a fourth instalment by Prof. Holttum & Drs. Hennipman is almost finished in MS. The final instalment of vol. 6 is in press and will appear presumably in September. Of vol. 7 the first instalment containing revisions of 12 families appeared in Jan. 1972. The second instalment of vol. 7 is in print (Fagaceae, Passifloraceae) and will appear in autumn. There is the prospect of publishing in the rather near future three very large families: Moraceae, Cyperaceae and Dipterocarpaceae. From the third chapter of this Bulletin it can be observed that progress with revisional work is satisfactory, though speed of publication still falls short of my expectation.