SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
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I 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
July 2, 1921. 
Mr. Oakes Arnes, 
North Easton, Massachusetts. 
Dear Mr. Arises: 
We are forwarding hy prepaid express a hox containing 
188 specimens of Orchidaceae from Central America. This in¬ 
cludes all of the material requested in your letter of June 
29. We are sending also the material of the genus Sohralia 
which I presume should he included, although it appears to 
depend upon whose arrangement of the family is followed. If 
there is any of the Mexican material which you wish to see, 
or any specimens from elsewhere, we should he glad to for¬ 
ward them whenever you ask for them. The rest of the material 
of the family we shall send whenever you wish to reoeive it • 
I was rather surprised to find that we had so little materi¬ 
al of the present genera, hut perhaps it is all that could he 
expected. I hope that we may have a more adequate represen¬ 
tation of the succeeding groups. There is included in the 
present shipment one duplicate specimen of a Panama orchid 
collected hy Mr. Pittier. This is to he retained hy yourself. 
It has not seemed feasible to include Mexico in the Cen¬ 
tral American flora. I have just finished the preparation of 
an account of the trees and shrubs of Mexico, one part of 
which has already been published. Two others are now in press 
and the whole volume should he published in the not very dis¬ 
tant future. To include the Mexican woody plants would he a 
rather needless repetition, and it does not seem desirable to 
include the herbaceous species. The flora of the northern 
two-thirds of Mexico is so different from that of Central 
America proper that its inclusion would probablj’- double the 
size of the completed flora. In the case of the orchids, of 
course, the conditions are somewhat different because most of 
the Mexican orchids grow in the southern part of the country 
and are closely related to those of Central America. 
There is one matter which I neglected to mention when 
writing concerning the style of the flora. I have been hoping 
to be able to include a line drawing illustrating one species 
of each genus treated. 'Whether or not this will be practi¬ 
cable is impossible to say just now, but it will certainly be 
possible to include all such illustrations that can be secured. 
If you are able to supply drawings suitable for text figures 
which may be used to illustrate the generic characters of the 
Central American orchids,either in whole or in part, they can 
oertainly be published and they would, of course, add greatly 
