From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 3, July 2019.
Report from Guyana, June 1994: Having just flown into Kaieteur National Park, Carol Kelloff, Paula DePriest, and Mike Tamessar (University of Guyana) realize that Eric Christenson, who had flown in with them, is missing. Christenson is found at the airstrip, with camera and gear unpacked, focused on a Vanilla bicolor Lindl. vine in bud. “Christenson had only seen an illustration of this flower and was questioning whether the subtle colors of blue and pink that were “painted” on the original drawing were the true colors. He […] was willing to camp out under the vine not to miss the opportunity. […] The next morning the flowers opened, and Christenson was very pleased to see that the artist’s rendering of the colors was correct.”
Carol Kelloff, Vicki Funk, and Sara Alexander have published “Smithsonian Plant Collections, Guiana Shield: 1985–2014, Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Collectors” (2019, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Contributions to Botany), which covers the collections of 36 collectors. This volume is intended as a reference for herbaria holding collections made during collection trips sponsored by the Biological Diversity of the Guiana Shield Program (BDG), and as an aid to botanists and taxonomists interested in the region. Part I contains expedition narratives and maps of teams’ routes; part II lists collection localities by collector, with collection number ranges, habitat descriptions, geographic coordinates, and assisting collectors; part III lists collections in numerical order with identifications; and part IV lists collections ordered by determined taxonomic name; followed by four plates of color photos. It also includes a dedication to Tom Hollowell, data manager of the BDG from 1996 to 2005. The publication is available as a free pdf download at https://opensi.si.edu/index.php/smithsonian/catalog/book/210.
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