HIGHLIGHTS OF BOTANICAL EXPLORATION IN THE NEW WORLD 225 



Based on a series of continuing field explorations begun in 1935, organized 

 and led by R. E. Woodson, Jr., and assisted variously in the field by R. J. 

 Seibert, Paul Allen, R. W. Schery, and others, new material has been col- 

 lected to contribute to a Flora of Panama. The Flora is a well-documented, 

 fully descriptive work, released in parts, at this time having progressed into 

 the third volume ("Flora of Panama" by Robert E. Woodson, Jr., and 

 Robert W. Schery and collaborators, Ann. Mo. Bot. Card. Vol. 30, Nos. 1-2, 

 1943; Vol. 31, No. 1, 1944; Vol. 32, No. 1, 1945; Vol. 33, Nos. 1, 4, 1946; 

 Vol. 35, No. 1, 1948; Vol. 36, Nos. 1, 2, 1949; Vol. 37, No. 1, 1950). 



Early history of botany in the West Indies is associated with the pre- 

 Linnaean field work and publication of Hans Sloane, who spent fifteen 

 months in Jamaica during the years 1687-1689, with Patrick Browne's floris- 

 tic writings on Jamaica (1756), Plumier's works (1693-1760), Jacquin's 

 visits (1754-1759) to Jamaica, St. Kitt's, St. Vincent, and Granada, from 

 which resulted his important Historia Selectarum Stirpium Americanarum 

 (1780), and Swartz' field work in Jamaica, Haiti, and some of the lesser 

 Antilles in 1784-1789, resulting in his Flora Indiae Occidentalis (1797- 

 1806). This long era of the early history was brought to a close by the 

 preparation of the Flora of the British West Indian Islands by Grisebach 

 (1859-1864). Grisebach provides a short sketch of the history of the West 

 Indian Islands, particularly those of the British West Indies, in the preface 

 to his Flora. Ignatius Urban in the introduction to his Symbolae Antillanae 

 seu Fundamenta Florae Indiae Occidentalis (1898-1928) and his Geschichte 

 des Kbniglichen Botanischen Museums zu Berlin- Dahlem (1815-1913), 

 published in 1916, has provided extensive historical material. 



From the turn of the century, two field operations on the grand scale were 

 carried on in the West Indian area, the first and more extensive by N. L. 

 Britton and his numerous colleagues in the field, chief of whom were Percy 

 Wilson, C. F. Millspaugh, L. M. Underwood, W. R. Maxon, J. K. Small, 

 G. V. Nash, and N. Taylor. During a period of more than twenty years they 

 amassed a large body of material (some 97,121 specimens!), which is de- 

 posited at The New York Botanical Garden and which became the basis 

 of the Flora of Bermuda by N. L. Britton (1918); The Bahama Flora by 

 N. L. Britton and C. F. Millspaugh (1920); and "Botany of Puerto Rico 

 and the Virgin Islands," N. L. Britton and Percy Wilson (1923-1930). In 

 Cuba, Britton carried out extensive field explorations with his collaborators 

 and in conjunction with Hermano Leon of the Colegio de La Salle. A manu- 

 script of "A Flora of Cuba," based on these and the extensive historical 

 collections of C. Wright and others, was prepared and is on file in the library 

 of The New York Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, because of Britton 's 

 death, it was never published. This manuscript and materials from the col- 

 lections of more than 22,000 numbers of Hermano Leon and later those of 

 Hermano Alain are the sources upon which the present Flora de Cuba, by 



