Show KeP Keeping e in g U Up p 0 n rv e eC t e II In n anle r le W NU nl Study to Solve Hawaii's Botanical Puzzle Rare Hare Beautiful Plant Interests Scientists WASHINGTON Silver Silver- swords among the rarest and most beautiful of Hawai Hawai- HawaiIan Hawaiian ian fan plants constitute one of the worlds world's prize puzzles in botany Scientists of the Bernice Her Her- nice Nee Bishop Museum in Honolulu lion Hon and of the Carnegie Institution In In- Institution of Washington under under under un un- der the leadership of Dr David D D. D Keck have lately been making n new effort to get more definite facts about this spectacular plants plant's kinships kinships kin kin- ships and origin for it is believed believed be be- that through such data new light may be shed on the still greater greaser scientific riddle of Hawaii's unique forms of r plant life lICe The forms a ball ball like flutter of narrow sword shaped leaves white unite with a silvery coating of hairs From this basal banal rosette there shoots boots up a three to six foot Gower talk sUlk thickly beset beet with blooms bloom The plant Is a member of the huge botanical family known as II the Compositor which Includes Include such luch familiar things ns II sunflowers artichokes t thistles h I II a t C I 1 a 0 I. I and lettuce Not NoC of American Ancestry It has haa hitherto been considered more moro nearly nearl related to the lound round on the Ia Pacific elfte coasts of both Americas merlen but Dr Keek's Kecks re re- now Indicate that it Is not and ind that the Is more related to the tree treelIke tree composites com of Hawaii a very remarkable remark remark- able ible group of plants whose nearest Kindred are found far southwestwards southwest southwest- wards across the Pacific In Polynesia Poly nesia Deala and the New Australia Australla New Zealand Zealand Zea Zea- Zealand land re region lon The elimination of an American ancestry of the silver lIver word and their assignment to an origin in a diametrically opposite op op- polite polte direction is considered an on Important step tep In plant geography |