regions throughout the world but growing under the same eco- 

 logical conditions. Such studies are needed to help distinguish 

 between plant structural features which are determined geneti- 

 cally and those induced by environmental conditions. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



I am deeply indebted to Professor Ralph H. Wetmore for 

 sharing his memories of Botany at Harvard throughout the past 

 fifty years, which both inspired this article and insured its histor- 

 ical accuracy. I also wish to thank P ofessors Elso S. Barghoorn 

 and Richard Evans Schultes for their encouragement and help- 

 ful editorial comments. 



REFERENCES CITED 



Jeffrey, Edward C. 1917. The Anatomy of Woody Plants. University of 



Chicago Press, Chicago, x & 478 pp. lllus. 

 . 1924. The origin and organization of coal. Mem. Am. Acad. Arts 



&Sci. /5(1): 

 . 1925. Coal and Civilization. The Macmillan Company, NY. xvi & 



178 pp. illus. 

 Sargent, Charles S. 1884. Report on the Forests of North America. United 

 States Department of the Interior, Census Office, ix & 612 pp. 



Phillip M. Rury 



Atkins Research Fellow in Economic 

 and Tropical Botany; Curatorial 

 Assistant, Harvard Wood Collection 



THE ORCHID HERBARIUM OF 



OAKES AMES 



A commitment to orchid culture, or rather the "must" of pos- 

 sessing a living orchid collection, is well known to have been a 

 top priority on the list of desiderata of the aristocracy of Eng- 

 land and Europe during the 19th Century. This infectious charm 

 of the period, which dominated especially the Victorian era, 

 quickly extended its presence to the New World, where, among 

 others, North Easton, Massachusetts, was a logical place for it 



to take up a new residence. 



26 



