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… February 23, 1959 Botanical or Cultural Relations Department United Fruit Co. Boston, Mass. Gentlemen: Mr. Paul Allen of Santa Tecla El Salvador tells me that you have an outstanding collection of tropical plants at your Tancetilla Experimental Station in Honduras and in your various townsites, but I can't find out how to get to them or anything about overland travel in Honduras. I am going to Central America March 1st to illustrate more tropical flowers. I hope to use the 45 colored illustrations which I own from our book, "Flowers of the South, Native and Exotic", for a popular tropical booklet in Spanish -- or …

the character of the native vegetation and our meteorological ob- servations there are considerable areas the agricultural potentialities of which are not being exploited. Is it possible that you might be interested in again supporting my South American botanical research? If so, I would be glad to explain in more detail my Chilean proposals. With best wishes Cordially, THG:T

… Dept. of Environmental Population and Organismic Biology University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado Dear Dr. Rogers: I am a Yale graduate student in anthropology, specializing in the archaeology of northern South America. I hold a keen interest in manioc domestication and would greatly appreciate some advice in regards to a project I am under- taking this summer in Venezuela. Several graduate students, including myself, at Yale are researching the potential of opal phytoliths as a paleobotanical tool for detecting and identifying vegetation in archaeological sites. If you are unfamiliar with this technique, there …

The varieties collected were chosen on the following bases, the criteria listed in descending order of importance: 1. Percent of crude protein according to previous analyses 2. Productivity of foliage 3. General acceptability of the variety in present Jamaican usage The Jamaican varieties sampled are: Collection number (D. J. Rogers) Station number (at Bodles) 312 C8 313 1 314 34 315 39 316 49 317 55 318 28 319 51 320 44 321 11 Approximately ten pounds of foliage of each variety were collected, packed in dry ice, and returned to the U. S. via air freight. These collections are documented by herbarium specimens in …

THE MAINTENANCE OF LIVING PLANT COLLECTIONS* Paul K. Soderholm Plant Introduction Station Miami, Florida, U.S.A. HISTORY The Subtropical Horticulture Research Unit of the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, formerly known as the U.S. Plant Introduction Station of Miami, has been engaged in intro- ducing and maintaining living plant materials (germplasm) for 75 years. In 1898 the Department rented seven acres of land in the area that is now downtown Miami. In a few years the site became inadequate to contain the flood of plant "immigrants", as they were called at that time, and a new 25- …

I. Collecting Although this pamphlet is primarily intended merely to help in identifying plants, it is hoped that it may stimulate some readers to become interested in collecting and preserving plant specimens. It is unlikely that you will ever again find yourself in a place where the flora is so little known or where an even limited effort in collecting would contribute so much to science. The following paragraph is quoted from Plant Collecting by the Armed Services, by Egbert H. Walker, The Bulletin of the U. S. Army Medical Department, No. 33, December 1944. "Every man in the service, medical or otherwise, has …

… cia e Investigacion". It will be a pleasure and honor to collaborate with you. I will, as soon as possible, prepare an original article of about 1500 words on "Evidence concerning the origin of the tobacco plant" which Dr. Parodi might be good enough to translate into Spanish. In addition you might wish to publish a translation of a short article on the vegetation and plant resources of Chile which is being published by Chronica Botanica in a volume entitled "Vegetation and Plant Resources of South America". I sent a copy of the proof of this article to Senor Antonio Digilio (Calle Ensenada 449, Buenos Aires),wit …

… in June, and, I understand, there is a young man from Bogota at NY. Recently I came across the Uribea specimen (fragment) from Costa Rica that I wanted to show you when you were here. It is in a bundle of plants that need labels. I am glad that I found it and was reminded of it so I will include it in a treatment of the Sophoreae that I am preparing for North American Flora. At the moment I am mixed up with Mimosa, trying to identify a few Galeotti collections from Mexico. An interesting complex is that with M. distachya Cav., from Mexico, and M. oligocantha DC., from Colombia and Venezuela. According to Bentham …

I. Collecting Although this pamphlet is primarily intended merely to help in identifying plants, it is hoped that it may stimulate some readers to become interested in collecting and preserving plant specimens. It is unlikely that you will ever again find yourself in a place where the flora is so little known or where an even limited effort in collecting would contribute so much to science. The following paragraph is quoted from Plant Collecting by the Armed Services, by Egbert H. Walker, The Bulletin of the U.S. Army Medical Department, No. 83, December 1944. "Every man in the service, medical or otherwise, has …

… 1, 1956 Dr. C. Vargas C. Casilla 79 Cuzco, Peru Dear Friend: Thank you for your letter of June 9 and for calling my attention to the error in my paper (with Dr. Stork). I think that if I change "north" to "south" of Barranca the description of the locality will be approximately correct. I was happy to receive your "Las Papas Sudperuanas, II parte." You are doing a fine piece of work on a difficult and important topic. I am sorry that your health is not good. Are you able to do any collecting, in Dept. Cuzco at least? I ask this question because I hope to obtain money to collect more Peruvian and Chilean plants fo …

January 4, 1957 Dr. A. S. Foster Chairman, Dept. of Botany Dear Dr. Foster: I am proposing to spend the period September 1, 1957 to March 30, 1958 in South America as Director of a 6th South American botanical expedition. My primary objective will be the accumulation of evidence -- via collections of herbarium material and living plants -- to evaluate and clarify certain phytogeographic problems of temperate South America. I hope to take with me North American botanists and collectors. Following the close of the South American portion of the project I plan to spend the period April 1, 1958 to June 30, 1959 here i …

environment is quite striking as I begin to compare the plants of each locality. In Costa Rica, through the efforts of Dr. Jorge Leon, most of the clones occurring in that country had already been assembled in museum plots at Turrialba. By cooperation with various inter-American agricultural missions, and through departments of agriculture of several South American and Far Eastern countries, we were able to establish Turrialba as a center for bringing together clones from all over the world. By June of this year, the two plantings of local clones in Jamaica were ready for sampling. The methods of sampling are ess …

Wyoming. During the months of May and September they explored, out of preference, the departments of Lima, Junin and Huánuco, obtaining more than 7000 specimens of plants. In a second trip that he realized the following year accompanied by Prof. L.S. Beyen of the University of Wisconsin, he covered during the months of March to September the same departments exploring by choice the forest of Eastern Peru. Today he is engaged in the publication of his monumental work entitled "Flora of Peru" of which there have been published the past year four large volumes and numerous monographies on the result of his expeditio …

… collections all arrived in good condition and I expect to begin working on them shortly. I already have on hand a large number of specimens sent to me by the New York Botanical Garden from various parts of South America and there are still others from Tierra del Fuego sent by my colleagues in Argentina. I am preparing a supplement to my monograph in Flora Neotropica and shall include in it all neotropical material that I have identified since 1971. I am eager to do this as soon as possible, but as you know, it is very time consuming. Nonetheless I am making some progress and tentatively plan to examine all your c …

… it in detail. I am sorry that offhand I cannot identify the flowering shrub you photographed but should be able to get a determination from some of my Brazilian colleagues. The views of the "Switzerland of South America" are very nostalgic and tantalizing. There is no area in either America which is more promising and important botanically than southern Chile from Concepcion to Chiloe, especially on the coast but also in the Cordillera. The vegetation of much of this area is practically unknown and the relatively short periods over the past 17 years during which we have been able to collect there have yielded muc …

T. H. Goodspeed, Ph.D., Doctor (hon.c.), Sc.D. (hon.c.) Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Garden University of California, Berkeley South American experience and contacts 1935-36; 1938-39; 1942-43; 1946; 1948; 1952 In South America six times for periods of 3 to 15 months to survey the character and distribution of the vegetation, principally of Peru, Chile, Argentina and Colombia but also of Bolivia and Uruguay, and to cooperate in educational and other programs. Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia Directed botanical exploration of little known areas leading to discovery of new species of potential a …

… erials in Jamaica and Costa Rica as well as propagating material from my forthcoming trip to Brazil. I am looking forward to a two-month endeavor in Brazil this coming January and February with the hope of collecting a sufficiently broad sampling from the center of variations to allow a thorough-going analysis. Since the whole field of agricultural studies of cassava is rather limited, there are literally hundreds of problems to be studied with these plants. Not only is the taxonomy of the group thoroughly confused, but the knowledge of genetics is very scanty. Some plant breeding has been done, particularly for …

… een described from this area generally on incomplete material and it is a center of palm diversity of primary importance, that has received relatively less attention by recent collectors than Panama to the south and Guatemala further north. Mr. Paul H. Allen of the Experimental Station, Gia. Bananera, Golfito, Costa Rica has a considerable reputation as a student and collector of palms in tropical America and knows Costa Rica well. He is to be transferred from his present post to Honduras in April or May of 1953 and I would like to avail myself of his knowledge before he leaves. He has several times indicated a w …

… otors Inc. Toledo 1, Ohio Dear Mr. Canaday: Since my last letter to you it has become necessary to have immediate assurance that I can continue my botanical explorations at least in Chile during my stay in South America this fall and winter. This meant that I had to obtain additional funds. You will be glad to know that Charles Kendrick has generously agreed to finance a Chilean expedition. I hope that you will decide to support the collecting in Ecuador and Peru according to the proposals outlined in my previous letters. They call for explorations in subtropical areas and would along with the work in temperate C …

Berkeley, California July 13, 1953 Mr. Charles Kendrick Russ Building San Francisco, California My dear Charles: For some time I have wanted to give you a report on the South American botanical expedition of November 1951 to April 1952 in the financial support of which you so generously shared. The black line on the enclosed map shows the route of the expedition in Chile and Peru. Some 5000 miles were traversed by car and 1000 by other transportation and on foot. As shown, the coast of Chile was explored from the arid and torrid north, through the central ("Mediterranean") portion and into the forested, humid sou …