255 Commonwealth Avenue, 3oston, Mass, Hovember 20, 1921. 
My dear Mr. Powell: 
I sent off to you by the afternoon mail on Mon¬ 
day last another package of reprints. Two of these were written by 
my former laboratory assistant, Ur. B. 0. Leavitt. His paper on the 
genus Sria was the result of painstaking studies of the types in 
European herbaria and will give you an idea of the methods I have 
adopted in doing my work. When we undertook the study of Philippine 
orchids for the Bureau of Science at Manila in 1905 I had a very 
inferior collection of Malayan types. Hot a single Cuming specimen 
was available in this country and lindley's types were at Kew, Blume&a 
at Leiden, and Reiohenbach's available types were here and there in 
different European collections. I took up this work with reluctance 
and dread. I was not in a position to determine anything outside of 
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the usfcal horticultural species from Java and Borneo. My collection 
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of living orchids, some 200 genera and 2,000 species, was inadequate 
even for a beginning. It was during an absence that my fate in this 
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undertaking was sealed! Ur. Leavitt on his own responsibility accep¬ 
ted the invitation of the Philippine botanists to handle Philippine 
orchids. When I realized my predicament I ordered Leavitt and my 
other assistant, Mr. Eaton, to assemble all of my material of Mal¬ 
ayan orchids, to pack up all of the critical literature in the lib-> 
rary, to provide three dissecting microscopes with complete equip¬ 
ment and to make ready three cameras. I told them to be ready to 
accompany me to Europe at the end of tw& weeks. I assigned to Ik*. 
Leavitt the genus Erie. w e went to Europe on scheduled time. First 
we exhuasted the British Museum collections. Every Cuming sheet 
was studied, photographed and described. Camera lucida sketches were 
made of moistened flowers. Many Reichenbachian identifications and 
types or duplicate types were found. Then we went to Eew. What we 
