Editorial

Since the last Bulletin was published we have to regret the loss of four persons who were supporters of Flora Malesiana or collaborated with it in some way or other. Mr. P. Groenhart started his career in Java as a botany teacher in the Agriculture School at Malang. He was keenly interested in plants and became gradually specialized in lichens which are, particularly in the tropics, a fascinating group, under-collected and inadequately known. Though an amateur, he gradually elevated his work to a true scientific level and was granted extended leave for this work in the early thirties which he spent at Utrecht University, Holland. From this emanated an enumeration of Javanese lichens and several other papers. Since then he gradually accumulated a large herbarium and a specialized library, devoting all his spare time to the study of Malesian lichens. He was not easily satisfied and the peculiar tropical groups led him to contemplate systematic questions on the division of lichens. The time-consuming work involved with the microscopical structure of these organisms caused much delay and in addition he had to classify a very large collection. It should be added that he was not very ambitious to publish. The main gain to science is a well-ordered large and annotated collection bestowed to the Rijksherbarium, Leyden. A few but important papers will be edited posthumously in Persoonia. A most pleasant, cooperative man.