255 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Mhss. 
May 2d, 1922 
My dear Dr, Standley: 
My reaotion to your letter of the first May 
is simply this: the battle grounfi at present is in Costa Rioa. 
We have simply got to get material from there in order to hold our 
own. Lankester is doing a good job and his letters and specimens 
are telling, but I fear he misses much and simply goes afield when 
his work eases up. Costa Rica f 'rom present indications is by no 
means exhausted. Lankester’a sets have been running, I should say, 
off hand, about 50$ new species. I am just pushing through a paper 
with over thirty new speciso and I have another paper in preparat¬ 
ion. Some of his specimens are puzzles generically and some of his 
species are extraordinary in their genera. I have just finished the 
work on his Eew material received from Captain Hill since my return 
from Honduras. He has more material in press that ought to reach me 
this summer. 
Panama, as you know, has come to us through Powell 
I have really got him on a botanical basis and his specimens are good 
He is no longer sending material to Berlin. Just at present he is 
making ready his Chirioui set . From that I expect many interesting 
species as he is now using field presses and gathering in things in 
nuantity. 
Honduras is a practically untouched field, but 
to collect there is difficult and in many ways impracticable unless 
one has pretty substantial backing. The flra on the east coast is 
very much Guatemalan from the orchid point of view. I have just had 
a small set come in from Ml Dorado that simply duplicates species 
that I got at Tela and Truxillo. Honduras is arid when compared with 
