SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
December 6, 1921 
Mr. Oakes .Ames, 
355 Commonwealth Avenue, 
Boston, Massachusetts. 
Dear Mr. Ames: 
Your letter of November 28 arrived promptly but I have 
been so busy with packing and other matters during the last 
few days that I have not gotten around to answering it until 
now. I am especially glad to have the suggestions with re¬ 
gard to the collection of economic and museum material, and 
I shall do what I can toward obtaining material of the sort 
desired. It is needless to say that I shall do my best to 
obtain a good representation of the orchids, and I hope that 
it will be possible to secure something of real interest. I 
am expecting to leave Washington tonight and I shall reach 
Guatemala about a week from now. I hope that it will be 
possible to proceed at once to Salvador. 
It is very fortunate that matters with regard to Mr. 
Powell have turned out so well, and I hope that he will be 
able to send you a quantity of interesting material. I 
trust that no difficulties will arise with regard to the 
collection of Mr. Powell’s orchids which is coming from Kew. 
These, I should Suppose, would be different collections than 
those forwarded to Sohlechter and probably your studies of 
them would not interfere in any way with what he has been 
doing with the Panaman collections. 
In the case of preparing illustrations of the genera 
for use in the Central American Flora, it will be best for 
you to use your own judgment as to the species that should 
be illustrated. I do not think that it is necessary in every 
case to illustrate the most common species of a genus, and I 
am inclined to believe that it might in some cases be prefer¬ 
able to use drawings of some of the species that have not been 
illustrated before. 
Sincerely yours, 
Paul C. Standley 
Assistant Curator, 
Division of Plants 
