BOTANICAL EXPLORATION OF NORTHWESTERN 



HAITI 



By E. C. LEONARD, 



Assistant Curator. Division of Plants, V . S. National Museum 



The northwestern ])enin.sula uf Haiti with its numerous and chverse 

 plant associations has long been in need of thorough botanical ex- 

 ploration. I was fortunate in being assigned to this work, fostered by 

 Dr. W. L. Abl)ott and the Smithsonian Institution. 



In pitch darkness, on the night of Deceml:)er 20, 1928, my wife and 

 I were unceremoniously " dumped " from the Columbian freight 

 steamer Martinique into a small rowboat and pulled ashore at Port de 

 Paix amid the excited chattering and ogling of the usual crowd of 

 wharf loiterers. After placing our cumbersome baggage in the Cus- 

 toms House we were taken by auto, without a word of explanation, to 

 the l)oarding house of ^Madame Chee Chee (short for Theodore), 

 which was to be our occasional home throughout the ensuing months. 

 This apparently unsolicited attention remained a mystery to us until 

 two days later, when we learned that it had been by order of Captain 

 Peter Hartmann of the Gendarmes, who proved thenceforward our 

 counselor and f riend-in-need. 



Port de Paix, second in size to Cap Haiten on the north coast, lies 

 between two of a series of mountain spurs extending seaward from 

 Morne Haut Piton, a mountain whose size and height can be judged 

 only when viewed from a distance. The region roundabout is moist 

 and very ])roductive, and is thickly populated, the town itself a center 

 of the coffee and cacao industry. The following five days, interrupted 

 by periods of sickness, were given to the assembling of equipment 

 and to collecting from the nearby hills. Finally we were al)le to cross, 

 in a small fishing boat, to Tortue Island. 



La Vallee, on Tortue Island, is a short, deep, many-branched valley 

 which nearly severs the l:)ackbone of the island and is easily seen from 

 the mainland. Here we made a landing on the crumbling cement 

 wharf used in the past by a lumbering company, as scattered frag- 

 ments of machinery and an old narrow-gauge engine, all l)ut swal- 

 lowed by the jungle, plainly indicated. We set up our tent, or caillc 

 ax'cc planches, as the natives called it. under a large bayahon tree, 

 where, eml)arrassed by constant visitors, bitten by fleas, worried by 

 hogs and dogs, we managed to live two weeks, busily collecting and 



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