A Flora of Manila was published by the Bureau of Science , Department of the Interior, in Manila in 1912, as its Publication No. 5. The author, Elmer Drew Merrill, was a prominent American botanist who served as the Chief of the Bureau of Science's Botanical Section during the American colonial period. The work is a foundational taxonomic reference for the characteristic vegetation of the low-altitude settled areas in the Philippines. It covers an area of approximately 100 square kilometers in and around Manila. Merrill compiled the Flora because he recognized that the coastal region's flora was remarkably uniform across the Archipelago, making a Manila-focused study widely applicable to other populated regions at low altitudes. The book also corrected a common error in earlier botanical works where the term "Manila" was used loosely to refer to specimens collected anywhere in the Philippines. The final publication includes descriptions of 1,007 species, 591 genera, and 136 families of vascular plants, representing approximately one-sixth of the species known in the Philippines at the time. It includes both indigenous and widely cultivated species and provides an essential glossary of terms, aiming to be useful for students of descriptive botany.
A flora of Manila