41 



Exploration 



During the forepart of the year, Dr. Orland E. White, the 

 curator of plant breeding, was engaged in botanical exploration 

 in Bolivia and Brazil as the joint representative of the Department 

 of Economic Botany of the Bussey Institution, Harvard Univer- 

 sity and of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on the Mulford Biologi- 

 cal Expedition. He returned on April 14 and the remainder of 

 the year was largely spent by him in work connected with the 

 expedition's results and collections. 



Among the noteworthy collections made by Dr. White on this 

 trip were those of the Goto and Para-Coto bark, at Covendo. The 

 botanical origin of these important medicinal barks was hitherto 

 unknown, except that they belonged in the family Lauraceae, and 

 practically all of our supplies of these barks during recent 

 years have been wholly spurious. Dr. White collected bark and 

 herbarium specimens of both the Coto and the Para-Coto, as 

 well as bark and herbarium specimens from trees of similar and 

 related species which have furnished the spurious bark. Accord- 

 ing to the report of Dr. Rushy, the leader of the expedition (Jour. 

 N. Y. Bot. Gard. 23: 101-112. 1922), the result of Dr. White's 

 work will be to establish the possibility of securing pure supplies of 

 these barks in the near future. Further details concerning Dr. 

 White's work in South America will be found in Dr. Rusby's re- 

 port, just cited, and also in Dr. White's report published in the 

 Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record for July, 1922. 



The Coto bark tree and two of its relatives, collected by Dr. 

 White, are described by Dr. Rusby (Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 49 : 

 259-264. 1922) as species new to science, under the names Ncc- 

 tandra coto Rusby (the true Coto tree), Ocotca pscudo-coto 

 Rusby, and Aerodiclidium bcnensc Rusby, the latter two spurious 

 substitutes, medicinally worthless, so far as known. 



A report of the discovery of the Coto tree and the character of 

 its surroundings, by Dr. White, is incorporated in an article in the 

 Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, volume IT, 

 pages 775-7S1. 



