Department of Botany 



Research and Expeditions 



In the early part of the year the Curator Emeritus of Botany, 

 Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, continued his field work in Cuba on palms, with 

 the invaluable collaboration of several interested Cubans. As more 

 and more of the savannah country is becoming cleared for cattle 

 raising or rice growing, it is increasingly difficult to bring together 

 the botanical material and observations required for a critical and 

 comprehensive study of the whole genus Copernicia. Some rather 

 bulky material left in storage in Cuba in 1955 was brought to the 

 Museum with this year's collections. Flowering spadices, fruit, and 

 seeds maturing only in the latter half of the year have been received 

 from helpful and reliable correspondents in Cuba and Haiti. Seeds 

 for the production of seedlings of hitherto lacking species have been 

 supplied by Curator Emeritus Dahlgren to the University of Chicago 

 greenhouse to provide material for cytological study by Dr. J. M. 

 Beal and to the Chicago Park District greenhouses at Garfield and 

 Marquette parks for cultivation. In the care of the Museum's 

 palm herbarium and in his research on classification of Copernicia, 

 the Curator Emeritus has had the competent and effective part- 

 time aid of Dr. Sidney F. Glassman of the University of Illinois 

 (Navy Pier, Chicago). 



Paul C. Standley, Curator Emeritus of the Phanerogamic 

 Herbarium, now at Escuela Agricola Panamericana near Teguci- 

 galpa, Honduras, is resuming work, in collaboration with Paul Allen 

 of the United Fruit Company, on the flora of Honduras, which will 

 be published by the government of Honduras. J. Francis Macbride, 

 Curator of Peruvian Botany, continued his studies of various 

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

 In the section containing the families Sapindaceae— Theaceae, pub- 

 lished by the Museum before the end of the year, the treatment of 

 the genus Theobroma, to which cacao belongs, is by Dr. Jose" 

 Cuatrecasas, former Curator of Colombian Botany. 



Dr. Earl E. Sherff, Research Associate in Systematic Botany, 

 identified a large consignment of Hawaiian plants from Dr. Otto 

 Degener and another collection, mostly of Compositae, from the 

 British Museum (Natural History). Dr. Margery C. Carlson, 

 Associate in Botany, completed her monograph of the genus Rus- 

 selia (Scrophulariaceae) and late in December left for another 

 collecting trip in Costa Rica. 



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