Expeditions and other exploration

Mr C. Jeffrey of the Kew herbarium, who works on Cucurbitaceae, has been to the Seychelles for botanical collecting and exploration, his letter of Jan. 20, 1962 is interesting enough to quote the following passage from: ”You may be interested in a few impressions of the Seychelles flora, discounting introduced naturalized species, which now I fear cover most of the islands, I gain the impression that here we have a number of long-isolated and endemic species (perhaps some may prove subspecies?) of mixed African, Mascarene, and SE. Asian affinities, and mostly confined to higher ground on the larger islands, together with a number of indigenous non-endemic species which formed most of the original lowland vegetation, but some of which also occur in the higher parts, which are mostly (but not all) otherwise SE. Asian to Malaysian in distribution (the others are mostly Afro-Mascarene) or palaeotropical.