SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
December 6, 1922. 
Mr. Oakes Ames, 
355 Commonwealth A.venue, 
Eoston, Massachusetts. 
Dear Mr. Ames: 
Ycur letter of December 3 was received a few 
days ago, and this morning your second one of De¬ 
cember 6. We are greatly obliged to you for the 
identification of the Brasilian and Guatemalan 
orchids, and the names of these collections will 
be forwarded immediately to those interested. 
Today we received a collection of Mexican plants 
which contains a few orchids, and we shall send 
you a set of these, also, shortly. 
The specimens from Salvador and Guatemala 
are, of course, to be retained by yourself, al¬ 
though I see that I failed to make this plain in 
the letter. I do hope that there may be something 
of interest among them to compensate in part for 
their small number. 
It is certainly very pleasing to hear that 
your work upon the Central American orchids is 
proceeding so favorably. As to the completion of 
this part of the Central American Flora, there is 
no need for any special haste. I fear that the 
publication of the work will not proceed as ra¬ 
pidly as I had anticipated, for financial reasons, 
and personally I am not at all displeased because 
of this condition. The longer the publication is 
delayed,the greater will be the degree of com¬ 
pleteness possible^and since there is a good pros¬ 
pect that collecting will be carried on rather 
vigorously in Central America in the near future, 
I think it will be just as well to wait for awhile 
before publishing the flora. It is of course, as 
you. suggest, a very good plan to publish the new 
