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THE BROMELIACEAE OF BRAZIL 



By LYMAN B. SMITH 

 Department of Botany 

 U. S. National Museum 



With 128 illustrations by 



Robert J. Downs 



V. S. Department of Agriculture 



INTRODUCTION 



The present paper is written to organize the mass of recent species 

 of Brazilian Bromeliaceae in relation to past works to form a new 

 basis for other branches of biological study. In doing this it takes 

 into account the interest in the discovery and propagation of brome- 

 liads for economic and horticultural purposes and at the same time 

 the necessity for their destruction in limited areas to effect the control 

 of malaria. I am indebted to a great number of people and institu- 

 tions for help in the first instance and to the Serviqo Nacional de 

 Malaria of Brazil and to the Rockefeller Foundation for an under- 

 standing of the public health situation. 



The Bromeliaceae of Brazil have been covered exhaustively three 

 different times in the last 60 years by their great monographer, Carl 

 Mez.^ His most recent treatment in 1934 and 1935 in the Pflanzen- 

 reich indicated nearly 500 species as native to Brazil, yet since then 

 135 additional species have been discovered and still continue to ap- 

 pear so rapidly that 39 of them could not be published before the 

 present paper. 



This proportionately great increase in our knowledge of the group 

 is due to two sources unavailable to Mez — intensive collections since 

 his monograph, and large collections in the herbaria of the United 

 States and Brazil which, for some reason, he failed to see although 

 they mainly predated his work. Since 1935 the collecting of brome- 

 liads by systematic botanists has continued at much the same pace as 

 before and has resulted in additions to the Brazilian flora, but the 

 great increase in information has come from the horticultural side 

 through the intensive collections of Mulford and Racine Foster and 



i/» Martius, Flora Brasiliensis 3, pt. 3: 173-634. 1891-1894. In De Candolle, 

 Monographiae Phanerogamarum 9: 1-990. 1896. In Engler, Das Pflanzenreich 

 IV. 32 : 1-667. 1934-1935- 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 126, NO. 1 



