Editorial

We deeply regret to have lost three ardent supporters since the last bulletin appeared. Among them the nestor of Malesian botanists, Mr. I. H. Burkill, who passed away at the age of 94, a gentle scholar whom we had the privilege to meet on several occasions and with whom we had a fairly lively correspondence. Originally a collaborator of Sir George Watt on Economic Products of India, explorer of the Abor Expedition, Assam, later director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, he had a wonderful knowledge of and intense interest in the relations between man and plants. This was probably the reason that he got deeply interested in the botany of the yam family, of which he became a specialist, taxonomical, ecological, morphological and anatomical. He had also a deep interest in the relations between plants and animals, pollination, seed dispersal, subjects now much neglected because of the modern specialisation of biologists. His classic Dictionary of the Economic Products of the Malay Peninsula is in course of a second edition and his learned essays on the History of Indian Botany is expected to appear in book form.