SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
October 22, 1924. 
Mr. Oakes Ames, 
355 Commonwealth Avenue, 
Boston, Massachusetts. 
Bear Mr. Ames: 
We are forwarding, by mail, as an exchange, a package 
containing 40 specimens of orchids which I collected in Panama 
last year. As I already have written you, I did not obtain 
very many orchids in Panama, but there are about as many more 
numbers probably, of which only a single specimen was col¬ 
lected. When these have been mounted we shall be glad to 
send them on to you for examination, although I do not think 
it is likely that there is anything of interest among them. 
A good many of the specimens now being forwarded to you are 
very scrappy, and it will, perhaps, not be possible to iden¬ 
tify all of them, but we should appreciate having your de¬ 
terminations whenever it may be convenient to supply them. 
Thank you very much for the data with regard to Sohleeh- 
ter's papers. If you could supply a rough estimate of the 
number of orchids occurring in each one of the six Central 
American countries (except Salvador) I should greatly appre¬ 
ciate having it. The information isfor use in a popular 
article upon Central American orchids and for this reason it 
would not be worth while to make any special effort toward 
obtaining the figures, but in case they should be easily 
available^. it would be interesting to use them. 
I shall look forward with great interest to the results 
of your work upon the Costa Rican orchids. I do hope there 
may be something worth while among them. At this time of the 
year, when it begins to grow cold, I should be very glad to 
be starting again for Central America, and I hope that it may 
be possible to return there next year. It seems likely that 
it will be necessary to make another visit to Panama to ob¬ 
tain additional data for the flora of that region which we 
are working upon. If I do go to the Canal Zone again I hope 
it will be possible to make at the same time a visit to some 
more interesting part of Panama, either Chiriqui£pBocas del 
Toro or else to some new part of Costa Rica. ^ 
Paul C. Standley 
Associate Curator, j 
Bivision of Plants/ 
