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My dear Mr. Powell: 
I am sending to-day six volumes of ORCHIDACEAE 
together with some reprints taken from several Journals. Whether or not 
these will help you in your work, I am sure that you will find them w orthy 
of a place in your library of orchiaological literature. 
I have Just re-read your letter of the tentfc October and from it I 
understand that you prefer to send your material to Ur. Schlechter. I am 
sorry that events have so shaped themselves that you find more pleasure in- 
in doing that than in sending it here. Ho.ever, if yourare willing to let 
me have duplicates of your novelties and other material, that will be sure¬ 
ly satisfactory, as, after all, what I am interested in most is a guide to 
what is being done through actual specimens. It will be very helpful if 
you will send me duplicates of your orchids as at this time I am anxious 
to have in hand a very complete set of Central American species for the 
Flora. Results based on critical examination of specimens are much more sat¬ 
isfactory to me than dependence on printed descriptions which usually re¬ 
sult in an undigested compilation. 
Your reference to our inability to do good vvork here through lack of 
types is worthy of attention. In my herbarium alone, a collection of some 
thirty or forty thousand sheets of orchids, there is a liberal supply of 
types including some Reichenbachian and Lindley material. Furthermore I onoe 
made a trip to Europe with two assistans, three cameras and some useful pen¬ 
cils and spent several months in the great herbaria of England, France and 
Holland. For example, in recent work oy Schlechter I have noted errors 
made because of neglect of types, representative, of which are in my her¬ 
barium. 
You are in a position to do telling work, but more by constructive 
effort in the study of your plants than by endeavors to detect new species. 
The field worker deals with living things, with flesh and blood, if you 
