NO. 4 COOPERATIVE WORK OF THE INSTITUTION 1 5 



bringing together vvell preserved herbarium material that would 

 afford not only general information relating to the systematic botany 

 of these regions, but would also provide exact basic information re- 

 garding many plants capable of yielding commercial timbers, drugs, 

 oils, dye-stuffs, food-material, fibers, and other economic products 

 whose sources are in many instances obscure or unknown. The 

 investigation was planned to cover Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, 

 the Guianas, and several adjacent Caribbean islands, regions in which 

 no coordinated botanical eicploration had ever been conducted, and 

 from which material is urgently needed in connection with similar 

 studies of the botany of the West Indies and Central America. In 

 pursuance of the plan, several expeditions have gone into South 

 America for the benefit of the three institutions mentioned. 



Trees and Shrubs of Mexico. — In partial response to the pressing 

 demand for a synoptical treatment of the woody plants of tropical 

 North America, Mr. Standley has utilized the unrivalled Mexican 

 collections of Pringle, Palmer, Rose, Purpus, and others in the Na- 

 tional Herbarium in preparing a manuscript on the " Trees and 

 Shrubs of Mexico." Botanists of several institutions have assisted 

 in this work, and much aid has been rendered also by the Mexican 

 government, chiefly in the transmittal of botanical material obtained 

 during the biological survey of that country now in progress, all of 

 this being submitted to the U. S. National Museum for identification. 

 Similar material is being received through cooperation with several 

 able Mexican botanists, notably Dr. C. Conzatti of Oaxaca City. 



Flora of Central America and Panama. — Upon the practical com- 

 pletion of his manuscript upon the trees and shrubs of Mexico, 

 Mr. Standley took up the project of preparing a synoptical treat- 

 ment of the phanerogamic flora of all Central America and Panama. 

 The collections from these regions in the National Herbarium, though 

 large, are mainly from Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama. For 

 the purpose of obtaining material from a part of the intermediate 

 area, Mr. Standley was detailed to field work in Salvador, in Decem- 

 ber, 1 92 1, and spent five months there and one month in eastern 

 Guatemala, with funds provided by the cooperation of Prof. Oakes 

 Ames, the New York Botanical Garden, the Gray Herbarium, and 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and with the hearty assistance 

 of the Salvadorean government. An enumeration of the entire col- 

 lection will be published jointly by Messrs. Standley and Calderon 

 in Salvador under Government auspices. 



