Department of Botany 



Research and Expeditions 



The Department of Botany's long-standing reputation for research 

 in South American botany was recognized by the award of a com- 

 memorative medal issued for the celebration on June 13, 1958, 

 of the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Botanical Garden 

 of Rio de Janeiro. The medal, now on display in the departmental 

 library, was transmitted to Chicago Natural History Museum 

 through the courtesy of the Department of State of the United 

 States and Dr. G. H. M. Lawrence, Director of the Bailey Hortorium 

 of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 



The Curator Emeritus of Botany, Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, continued 

 his systematic studies of the genus Copernicia in collaboration with 

 Dr. Sidney F. Glassman of the University of Illinois (Navy Pier, 

 Chicago). As a direct result of this work a new name (Copernicia 

 leoniana Dahlgren and Glassman, see page 55) was given to a Cuban 

 species of palm (formerly called Copernicia burretiana Leon) that 

 was described originally by the late Brother Leon (Dr. Joseph S. 

 Sauget y Barbier), for many years a Corresponding Member of the 

 Museum (see Annual Report 1955, page 24). During the summer 

 Dr. Glassman made a field trip to Cuba and southern Florida to 

 collect additional Copernicia material. Work was also continued on 

 revision of the "Index of American Palms." 



J. Francis Macbride, Curator of Peruvian Botany, studied 

 various families in preparation of additional parts of Flora of Peru. 

 The University of California botanical expedition to Peru under the 

 leadership of Professor T. H. Goodspeed, supported in part by the 

 Museum, returned with extensive collections of cacti and other 

 plants. Paul C. Hutchinson, of the Botanical Garden of the Uni- 

 versity of California, is already actively engaged in preparing his 

 treatment of the family Cactaceae for the Flora of Peru. Dr. Rogers 

 McVaugh, who is Curator of Vascular Plants at the University of 

 Michigan and a Research Associate on this Museum's staff, began 

 work on his critical catalogue of the Sess^ and Mocino collection of 

 Mexican plants on loan from Madrid. During a visit to the Museum 

 in June he went over the entire collection, of which about a thousand 

 specimens are yet to be identified. In this work he will be assisted 

 by a number of specialists. In September he collected in the vicinity 

 of Apatzingan, Michoacan, a locality visited by Sess^ and Mociilo 

 in 1790, and expects to correlate his material with their collections. 



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