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MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN [ Vol. 8, No. 1 



operation I discovered should better be done in camp at night The reason is 

 rather simple. We often collected in the rain. As a result, the sheets sometimes 

 were soggy. Paper was too scarce in Ecuador to be thrown away and so these 

 soggy sheets were laid aside to be used again and dry ones substituted. Had they 

 all been given a number in the field there is a possibility that the number might 

 not have been crossed off when the paper was used the second time, and so cause 

 confusion of numbers at some later date. If the sheets were only damp as taken 

 out of the field presses, they were used that way c After considerable experimenta- 

 tion I have found that a special but not expensive item known as a "surgeon's 

 skin-marking pencil" is the best. A soft and waxy pencil is desirable, but it 

 should not be friable or gummy; the skin-marking pencil has the proper texture 

 and also will work on fairly wet paper, making a heavy mark without tearing,, 



In putting the plants of the day's collecting into press, it is not necessary to 

 have completely dry blotters. In fact, it is my opinion that with many materials, 

 slightly damp blotters are best for the first 24 hours. The main purpose of this 

 "seasoning" period, as I see it, is to permit the plants to carry on a little anaer- 

 obic respiration— as they will in a tight and slightly dampish press. This results 

 in the conversion of a portion of the carbohydrates to fatty compounds and these, 

 in turn, seem to distill throughout the plants while on the heat at a later period 

 and so keep the specimens a bit more pliable. As they become too damp, the 

 blotters may be fed into the driers with the specimens. 



By using these systematic methods of collecting and attending to the speci- 

 mens, three of us— Prieto, Giler and I— turned out some 6,600 specimen sheets in 

 about 40 days while in the eastern Cordillera. Part of the time Prieto was on a 

 wild-goose chase across the range in the Oriente trying to track down the flowers 

 of several species of Cinchona I wanted but which we had missed the previous 

 year, Giler was sent back to Cuenca on various occasions with accumulated ma- 

 terials and to replenish our supplies, population-sampling at different altitudes 

 in several groups occupied various days, and we soon cleaned up the area near 

 headquarters and so often had to climb miles at altitudes near or above 10,000 ft. 

 to get to really productive new areas. And all of this was done during the height 

 of the rainy season under the worst possible climatic conditions for field collect- 

 ing, and at a season when the flowering material was at its low ebb. I have re- 

 counted the foregoing not in a spirit of boasting, but to indicate the reasons why 

 I am a firm believer in systematizing the collecting routines and also why I am a 

 strong advocate of drying by artificial heat and the use of metal corrugates. With 

 all of this we also found ample time to visit back and forth with our new Cholo 

 friends # and make merry when the occasion arose. It was not a dull time with all 

 work and no play; it was a full and satisfying experience. In the meantime, al- 

 though we did not then know of it, a bomb had dropped on Hiroshima. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



One cannot properly acknowledge the help rendered in so many ways by so 

 many people in work spreading over so long a time and under such varying con- 

 ditions. The officials of the Misibn de Cinchona in Quito were most encouraging. 

 I have already mentioned the work of my three main assistants. One also remem- 

 bers those times when mules would flounder in the mud of the trails, and when 

 the muledrivers would have to jump into mud to their belts and hold up the heads 

 of the mules to keep them from smothering, while others jumped in and quickly 

 cut the pack ropes to rescue cargo boxes of precious specimens, even before they 

 extricated the mules; the mud does get deep on Ecuadorean trails. And the 



