Editorial

Since the last Bulletin was published our circle of collaborators has unfortunately lost Dr A.H.G. Alston, who had agreed to join Prof. Holttum in editorship of the Fern volumes of the Flora. It is an irreparable loss to pteridology as Dr Alston had an unparalleled, detailed knowledge and has unfortunately postponed the publication of a large amount of his findings and conclusions, which are now lost or doomed to remain unavailable in hardly legible written and uncorrected notes. I hope that it will be found possible to edit his interpretation of the Hortus Malabaricus of which he possessed a card index which obviously dated from his Ceylon time. Another sad loss is the recent passing away of the wellknown cyperologist of Kew, Mr E. Nelmes, who has done a great service to the Flora Malesiana by his work on the genus Carex.