A summary of Charles Wright's explorations in Cuba 



LuciEN Marcus Underwood 



+ 



The botanical explorations of Charles Wright in Cuba laid 

 the foundation for our knowledge of the flora of that island, but 

 have left much to be discovered. As will be seen by the following 

 summary, his travels were confined chiefly to the two ends of the 

 island, leaving the great central portion largely unexplored. It 

 IS very unfortunate that the labels on his plants, at least in most 

 of the collections where they are to be found, bear only the inscrip- 



ft 



tion ''Cuba" or *'in Cuba orientali." A serial catalogue of 

 Wright's numbers would be of great value, made up from the 

 data on some of the collections where they are to be found. For 

 example, the ferns In Eaton's collection at New Haven bear the 

 data with a much greater degree of fullness, written in from 

 Wright's field-notes, and as Eaton published on the ferns of 

 Wright's collections it is probable that his collection is fuller than 

 any other in existence,* Probably the Grisebach collection of 

 spermatophytes at Gottingen is the most complete for this group, 



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but that of Sauvalle (now at the Estacion Central Agronomica in 

 Cuba) is very complete and is said to contain notes showing 

 localities, as would be natural considering the plan Wright had in 

 mind to prepare a flora of the island in connection with Sauvalle. 



It appears from Wright's correspondence that a considerable 

 portion of his collection was lost, mainly that collected in the rich 

 tobacco region of the western end of the island (Pinar del Rio). 

 How extensive this loss may have been, probably cannot now be 

 estimated, but it was certainly considerable. t Wright's sojourn 



*Dr, Gray (Am. Joun Sci. III. 31 : 12. 1886) says that the collection at the 

 Gray Herbarium is ^*the fullest set," but the ferns at least are better represented at 

 New Haven. • 



t It seems probable that this loss must have been very great, for we are surprised 

 at the numbers included in his sets. His numbers do not run much above 3,900, and 

 with a flora so large as that of Cuba it seems singular that a professional collector in 

 ten years should not have reached a much higher number, especially as there are numer- 

 ous duplicates in his collection, at least among the groups of plants with which the 

 writer is mostly concerned. The lower cryptograms were not numbered serially and he 



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