Orchids And Orchidology In Central America. 500 Years Of History

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quietaustralian

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I love that book. Eric Christenson once sent around an email speculating about how much information is buried in herbaria around the world that no one ever looks at. One of my old college profs said the same thing about fossils in the Smithsonian. Botanists collected plants, brought them back, then no one ever looked at them again. Some collections were broken up and sold off. pfft! Gone. Well, maybe not truly gone and maybe a few folks look at them, but just like the Smithsonian and their bone collection and fossil collections - no one goes back to look at what has gone before.

Also Ossenbach has some ancient woodcuts of orchids that would make very nice decorative tiles - if anyone is redoing their kitchen or bath.
 
but just like the Smithsonian and their bone collection and fossil collections - no one goes back to look at what has gone before.

I can personally speak on the fish division of the Smithsonian- the collection was constantly accessed when I was there. Of course, rare, unusual, uninteresting specimens may never get looked at after deposition, but lots of things are used regularly. That's the point of a museum, to document natural diversity and store records of it.

One of my profs was a paleontologist and they constantly had to go back to their specimens in the collection- they are the most reliant on museum specimens possibly... because there are dinosaurs described from a single toe or claw or whatever.
 
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