362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



by specialists. It is only the continued cultivation of the plants 

 in the garden that has made it possible to establish such a record 

 as to the number of Panama species. 



Aside from the material gathered upon these expeditions, one or 

 more native collectors have been employed for much of the time. 

 One of these men, a West Indian, himself has become almost an 

 expert upon the native oi'chids, having made many journeys into 

 the jungle after them and having cared for them in the garden. 



Collecting orchids in Panama is not the easy task that it is in 

 Costa Rica, where conditions are more favorable in every respect. 

 Except in the immediate vicinity of the Canal, transportation is 

 difficult. Even here it is usually necessary for the collector to make 

 his way over trails that are negotiable only on foot, or more fre- 

 quently through regions where there are no trails at all, and it is 

 no easy matter to force one's way through a lowland tropical jungle. 

 Moreover, in the present lowland forests orchids are not plentiful 

 as to either individuals or species. It may be that extended collec- 

 tion has made them scarcer about the Zone, but it seems doubtful 

 that, with the exception of such specially favorable localities as the 

 original Gatun basin, the plants eser were much more plentiful than 

 now. One can travel a long time, through the forests along the 

 Canal without seeing any orchids at all, and when some are found 

 they are likely to be perched high on the branches of some giant 

 tree, whence they can be obtained only by felling the tree, which 

 often requires the services of a couple of men for a whole day 

 or more. Even when the tree is felled, the orchids so laboriously 

 obtained may prove worthless. The smaller and more interesting 

 plants can not be seen from the gi'ound, for they grow mostly upon 

 the upper side of the branches and are hidden among other vegeta- 

 tion. Even when a tree can be climbed, usually it is so infested with 

 biting ants or other insects that only by submitting to torture, if 

 even then, is it possible to remain aloft long enough to secure speci- 

 mens. In Costa Rica one can collect in a single afternoon more 

 orchids than in a whole month in the lowlands of Panama. 



COMMON ORCHIDS OF PANAMA 



The Panama orchid flora includes a host of showy and interesting 

 species. It is curious that one Old World species seems to have be- 

 come naturalized. Some years ago Mr. Powell purchased a plant, 

 new to him, from a collector who claimed to have found it in a 

 swamp in the Zone. Upon flowering it was determined as Phaius 

 tancarviUeae^ a Chinese species. The same plant has become thor- 

 oughly naturalized in Jamaica. It is sometimes cultivated for 

 ornament, and probably had escaped from previous cultivation in 

 Panama as in Jamaica. 



