Vol. 8 No. 2 



MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN April 27, 1953 



THE BOTANY OF THE GUAYANA HIGHLAND 



A Report of the Kunhardt, the Phelps, and the New York 

 Botanical Garden Venezuelan Expeditions 



Bassett Maguire, Richard S. Cowan and 



JOHN J. WURDACK, AND COLL ABOR ATORS 

 INTRODUCTION 



Seldom do richness of natural history and delightful fantasy of fabulous legend 

 and classic literature so combine to lure attention as they do in the ancient 

 region of Guayana* 



Barely ten years after Columbus' discovery of the New World, tales were told 

 in maritime Europe of incredible men and practices in what was soon to be called 

 Guayana; of headless savages, war-waging women, and frightful arrow- and dart° 

 poison (curare). The myth of the Mar del Dorado somewhere in the remote interior 

 where the Indians covered themselves with dust of gold gained wide currency in 

 Europe. Raleigh a hundred years later led four expeditions into the mouth of the 

 Orinoco in quest of empire and in search of the gold of Dorado. 



Another two hundred years had passed before von Humboldt had skirted the 

 northern and western periphery of Guayana. And it was not until 1838=39 that 

 Robert Schomburgk traversed the wild region from east to west by foot and canoe, 

 giving meaning to the geography of Guayana, and finally quieting the stories of 

 the gold of El Dorado. 



But Indian legend and mythology continued to flourish. Such stories against 

 the backdrop of fantastic grandeur of landscape, in the light of newly rising con- 

 sciousness of the existence of an extraordinary flora and fauna on the isolated 

 mountain fastnesses, lent themselves to the beautiful writings of William H. Hud= 

 son and the imaginative classic of Conan Doyle. 



Actual facts of physical history and diversity and extraordinary endemism 

 among the biota of the isolated and lofty sandstone plateaus are found to be 

 hardly less spectacular than precursor fable and fantasy. It was these attractions, 

 largely revealed by the discoveries and writings of the Schomburgk brothers, that 

 during the latter part of the nineteenth century drew European biologists to Mt. 

 Roraima, the "Lost World" of Doyle. It is still that inexhaustible treasure-house 

 of natural history that continues to draw to the Guayana Highland naturalists from 

 the Americas and Europe, particularly from Venezuela and the United States. 

 Since 1925 continued exploration into still little known Guayana has been carried 

 on chiefly by Venezuelan naturalists, notably the Phelps, father and son, distin- 

 guished ornithologists; by Captain Felix Cardona, explorer-extraordinary for the 

 Venezuelan Government; by English botanists in the Kaieteur region; and by the 

 cooperative efforts of the Servicio Botanico, Caracas, the American Museum of 

 Natural History, the American Geographical Society, the British Guiana Forest De° 

 partment, and the New York Botanical Garden. These reports detail the results of 

 the continued exploration of the New York Botanical Garden and associated insti- 

 tutions and agencies, and may be considered preliminary to a floristic treatment 

 of the phytogeographic province, the Guayana Highland. 



There follows in this introduction a brief statement of the pertinent botanical 

 history of the region. Any consideration of geology and geography, and any inter- 

 pretation of phytogeography and ecology of the flora may more successfully be 

 made at the conclusion of the continuing program of exploration and the comple- 

 tion of the review of collected material. 



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