The 1932 expedition of David Fairchild to the Caribbean on board Utowana: Botanizing in Beata, Saona, Trinidad, Tobago, and Tortola islands
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17348/jbrit.v16.i2.1263Keywords:
Tropical islands, plant genetic resources, botanical history, Neotropics, plant biodiversity, Orator F. Cook, Mangifera indicaAbstract
Research conducted in the Archive and Library of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the U.S. National Archives, and the U.S. National Herbarium allowed us to reconstruct field work performed by David Fairchild (1869–1954) in the islands of Beata, Saona, Tobago, Tortola, and Trinidad in 1932. This was part of a larger expedition to the Caribbean Islands, Suriname and Guyana by the United States Department of Agriculture between December 1931 and April 1932. During the collection endeavor to these five islands, 261 photographs were taken, 82 herbarium collections (75 species) were made, and 185 germplasm accessions (148 species) were added to the USDA germplasm repositories. In total, plant material for 185 species (224 collections) was collected. A major highlight of the trip were the herbarium collections that led to the description of the Beata endemic genus Armouria (Malvaceae). However, more recent taxonomic studies place this genus within the tropical genus Thespesia (~13 species). Thirteen distinguished naturalists or high ranking government officers were met in Trinidad (12) and Tortola (1). Collections of cotton (6 accessions) and palms (25 accessions) were relevant to the expedition objectives; however no samples of Sea-Island Cotton were obtained, despite this being a major germplasm objective. Exploring the Botanic Garden of Trinidad was another main highlight of the trip. Documents, photos, and research results are made available online at: www.archive.org. The project is framed within an undergraduate research program on botanical history that is being performed in partnership with botanists from national and foreign institutions. Part of the collected material was introduced into the Jardín Botánico de Cienfuegos, Cuba shortly after the expedition ended.
References
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ACEVEDO-RODRÍGUEZ, P. & M.T. STRONG. 2022. Flora of the West Indies catalogue of seed plants of the West Indies. Available at https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/botany/WestIndies/. Accessed July 2022.
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ANONYMOUS. 1942. Social and personal. The Crown Colonist 12:723.
ANONYMOUS. 1942. Obituary. The Times 59953(March 16, 1977):18.
BAKSH-COMEAU, Y. 1991. Walter Elias Broadway-Botanist/naturalist extraordinaire. Liv. World 1991: 14–17.
BAKSH-COMEAU, Y., S.S. MAHARAJ, C.D. ADAMS, S.A. HARRIS, D.L. FILER, & W.D. HAWTHORNE. 2016. An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Trinidad and Tobago with analysis of vegetation types and botanical ‘hotspots’ Phytotaxa 250(1):1–431.
BALDWIN, J.T. 1969. Library notes made in Trinidad on Hevea. Econ. Bot. 23:20–23.
BOTANIC GARDENS CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL. 2022. Joseph Reynold O’Neal Botanic Gardens. Available at https://tools.bgci.org/garden.php?id=1290. Accessed July 2022.
BROOKS, R.L. 1935. Forests & forestry in Trinidad & Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago Forest Department.
CAHOON, B. 2022. British Virgin Islands. Available at https://www.worldstatesmen.org/Br_Virgin_Is.html. Accessed July 2022.
CAMAS, M., C.M.S. CARRINGTON, S. SAINT-AIME, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2020. David Fairchild’s plant hunting expedition in the Lesser Antilles: Year 1932. Selbyana 33:43–62.
CAMPBELL, C. 1988. The dual mandate of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture 1922–1960. Jamaican Hist. Rev. 16:1–16.
CHAVARRIA, R., B. JESTROW, E. FREID, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2020. The Bahamas and the first extensive expedition (1931–1932) of the USDA to the Caribbean Islands. Int. J. Bahamian Stud. 26:33–45.
CHEESMAN, E.E. 1947. Classification of the bananas. Kew Bull. 2:106–117.
COCK, M.J.W & F.D. BENNETT. 2011. John Golding Myers (1897–1942), an extraordinary exploratory entomologist. CAB Reviews Perspect. Agric. Veterin. Sci. Nutr. Nat. Resources 6(8):1–18.
COCK, M.J.W. & R.K. ROBBINS. 2016. Annotated checklist and biogeographic composition of the Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera) of Trinidad, West Indies. Insecta Mundi 0506:1–33.
COOK, O.F. 1923. Pseudophoenix insignis, a new palm from Haiti, and two other new species from the West Indies. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 13:397–408.
DORSETT, P.H. 1936. Allison V. Armour Agricultural Expedition for the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the Yacht Utowana, Visiting Islands of the British West Indies and British and Dutch Guiana, Nov. 1931– Apr. 1932 [unpublished report accessioned at US National Archives, College Park, MD. Depository: Volumes 74 and 75 of Expedition Reports of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the Department of Agriculture 1900–1938. Report completed in February 11, 1936]. Available at https://archive.org/details/dorsett-travelogue-1931-1932- usda-caribbean-expedition-vol-1-pp.-1-452/ page/35/mode/2up and https://archive.org/ details/dorsett-travelogue-1931-1932-usda-caribbean-expedition-vol-2-pp.-453-902/page/ n39/mode/2up.
FAIRCHILD, D. 1934. Hunting useful plants in the Caribbean. Natl. Geogr. 66:705–737.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., B. JESTROW, C. HUSBY, M. GRIFFITHS, & C. LEWIS. 2018a. The Garden’s early plantings. Tropical Gard. 73(1): 43–47.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., Y. SANTAMARIA, B. JESTROW, & M. SWAN. 2019. David Fairchild in the Caribbean: Five months (1931–1932) of plant hunting on board Utowana. Tropical Gard. 74(1):54–57.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., M. SWAN, W. CINEA, N. BEAUSSEJOUR, J.M. LATHAM, & B. JESTROW. 2018. David Fairchild’s plant hunting expeditions in Haiti. Huntia 17:5–35.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., M. SWAN, B.C. BENNETT, & B. JESTROW. 2020. Early use of motion pictures in economic botany (1924, 1926): China, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Econ. Bot. 74:363–371.
FREEMAN, W.G. & R.O. WILLIAMS. 1927. The useful and ornamental plants in Trinidad and Tobago. Government Printer.
FREID, E., J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, & B. JESTROW. 2014. Endemic seed plants in the Bahamian Archipelago. Bot. Rev. (Lancaster) 80:204–230.
FRYXELL, P.A. 1968. A redefinition of the tribe Gossypieae. Bot. Gaz. 129:296–308.
HARRINGTON, K. 2018. Happy 200th birthday to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad. Available at www.kew.org/read-and-watch/happy-200th-birthday-to-the-royal-botanic-gardens-trinidad. Accessed July 2022.
HARRIS, A. 2015. Fruits of Eden. David Fairchild and America’s plant hunters. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, U.S.A.
HODGE, W.H. & C.O. ERLANSON. 1956. Federal plant introduction: A review. Econ. Bot. 10:299–334.
HOWARD, R.A. 1949. Atkinsia gen. nov., Thespesia, and related West Indian genera of the Malvaceae. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club. 76:89–100.
IMLE, E.P. 1978. Hevea rubber – past and future. Econ. Bot. 32:264–277.
LEAKE, H.M. 1926. The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. J. Roy. Soc. Arts 74:164–177.
LEWTON, F.L. 1933. Armouria, a new genus of malvaceous trees from Haiti. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 23:63–64.
LORD, E. 1948. Taxonomy and evolution of cotton. Nature 162:716.
MARSHALL, R.C. 1934. Trees of Trinidad and Tobago. Government Printing Office, Trinidad.
MARSHALL, R.C. 1935. The physiography and vegetation of Trinidad and Tobago– A study in plant ecology. Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K.
MONTES ESPÍN, R., I. FERNÁNDEZ-SANTANA, A.L. VITLLOCH RAMOS, L. VASALLO RODRÍGUEZ, M.A. LIMA CRUZ, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2021. The expeditions of the research yacht Utowana and the building of the plant living collections of the oldest botanical garden of Cuba. Webbia 76:143–166.
MOORE, W.R. 1934. The golden isles of Guale. Natl. Geogr. 65:235–264.
MOSELY, J. 2013. Exploring for plants at Isla Beata. Tropical Gard. 68(1):64–65.
MUNGEAN, G.H. 2004. Hollis, Sir (Alfred) Claud. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available at https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-40606;jsessionid=1CF9A65A4EE9C23CA062D29ADD1E86E0. Accessed July 2022.
MYERS, J.G. 1929. Biological control. The principles of biological control. Trop. Agric. (Trinidad) 6:163–165.
NATIONAL PARKS TRUST OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS. 2022. J.R. O’Neal Botanic Gardens. Available at https://www.bvinpt.org/jr-o-neal-botanical. Accessed July 2022.
PEMBERTON, R. 2004. Historical approaches to problem solving in agriculture with reference to colonial Trinidad and Tobago. In: Proceedings of the CAES: 25th West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference, Suriname, August 2004. Pp. 72–84.
PEMBERTON, R., D. MCCOLLIN, G. MATTHEWS, & M. TOUSSAINT. 2018. Historical dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago. Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, U.S.A.
PLUCKNETT, D.L., N.J.H. SMITH, J.T. WILLIAMS, & N.M. ANISHETTY. 1987. Gene banks and the world’s food. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NY, U.S.A.
PROMUSA. 2020. Ernest E. Cheesman. Available at www.promusa.org/Ernest+E.+Cheesman. Accessed July 2022.
READ, R.W. 1966. Coccothrinax inaguensis– A new species from the Bahamas. Principes 10:29–35.
READ, R.W. 1983. Orator Fuller Cook: His itinerary. Principes 27:83–84.
ROOKS, D. 1991. Henry Caracciolo. Living World 1990–1991:14.
RUDD, V. 1983. O.F. Cook and palms. Principes 27:76–80.
SCHULTES, R.E. 1993. The domestication of the rubber tree: Economic and sociological implications. Amer. J. Econ. Sociol. 52:479–485.
STEPHENS, S.G. 1976. The origin of Sea Island cotton. Agric. Hist. 50(2):391–399.
THOMPSON, W.R. 1930. The biological control of insects and plant pests. A Report on the Organisation and Progress of the Work of Farnham House Laboratory. His Majesty’s Stationary Office, London, U.K.
TODD, A.L. 2009. Biographies of the agricultural explorers of the USDA’s Bureau of Plant Industry, 1897–1955: Part 1, A–F. i 14: 51–86.
URBAN, I. 1924. Phanerogams. Danks Bot. Ark. 7:5–10.
ACEVEDO-RODRÍGUEZ, P. & M.T. STRONG. 2022. Flora of the West Indies catalogue of seed plants of the West Indies. Available at https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/botany/WestIndies/. Accessed July 2022.
ANONYMOUS. Undated-a. Dominica Botanic Gardens. A brief history of the gardens. Dominica Botanic Gardens, Roseau. Available at https://www.dominicagardens.com/a-briefhistory.html. Accessed July 2022.
ANONYMOUS. Undated-b. Official guide of the Botanic Gardens, Dominica. Available at https://ia800907.us.archive.org/6/items/officialguidetob00bota/officialguidetob00bota.pdf. Accessed July 2022.
ANONYMOUS. 1942. Social and personal. The Crown Colonist 12:723.
ANONYMOUS. 1942. Obituary. The Times 59953(March 16, 1977):18.
BAKSH-COMEAU, Y. 1991. Walter Elias Broadway-Botanist/naturalist extraordinaire. Liv. World 1991: 14–17.
BAKSH-COMEAU, Y., S.S. MAHARAJ, C.D. ADAMS, S.A. HARRIS, D.L. FILER, & W.D. HAWTHORNE. 2016. An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Trinidad and Tobago with analysis of vegetation types and botanical ‘hotspots’ Phytotaxa 250(1):1–431.
BALDWIN, J.T. 1969. Library notes made in Trinidad on Hevea. Econ. Bot. 23:20–23.
BOTANIC GARDENS CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL. 2022. Joseph Reynold O’Neal Botanic Gardens. Available at https://tools.bgci.org/garden.php?id=1290. Accessed July 2022.
BROOKS, R.L. 1935. Forests & forestry in Trinidad & Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago Forest Department.
CAHOON, B. 2022. British Virgin Islands. Available at https://www.worldstatesmen.org/Br_Virgin_Is.html. Accessed July 2022.
CAMAS, M., C.M.S. CARRINGTON, S. SAINT-AIME, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2020. David Fairchild’s plant hunting expedition in the Lesser Antilles: Year 1932. Selbyana 33:43–62.
CAMPBELL, C. 1988. The dual mandate of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture 1922–1960. Jamaican Hist. Rev. 16:1–16.
CHAVARRIA, R., B. JESTROW, E. FREID, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2020. The Bahamas and the first extensive expedition (1931–1932) of the USDA to the Caribbean Islands. Int. J. Bahamian Stud. 26:33–45.
CHEESMAN, E.E. 1947. Classification of the bananas. Kew Bull. 2:106–117.
COCK, M.J.W & F.D. BENNETT. 2011. John Golding Myers (1897–1942), an extraordinary exploratory entomologist. CAB Reviews Perspect. Agric. Veterin. Sci. Nutr. Nat. Resources 6(8):1–18.
COCK, M.J.W. & R.K. ROBBINS. 2016. Annotated checklist and biogeographic composition of the Lycaenidae (Lepidoptera) of Trinidad, West Indies. Insecta Mundi 0506:1–33.
COOK, O.F. 1923. Pseudophoenix insignis, a new palm from Haiti, and two other new species from the West Indies. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 13:397–408.
DORSETT, P.H. 1936. Allison V. Armour Agricultural Expedition for the U.S. Department of Agriculture with the Yacht Utowana, Visiting Islands of the British West Indies and British and Dutch Guiana, Nov. 1931– Apr. 1932 [unpublished report accessioned at US National Archives, College Park, MD. Depository: Volumes 74 and 75 of Expedition Reports of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction of the Department of Agriculture 1900–1938. Report completed in February 11, 1936]. Available at https://archive.org/details/dorsett-travelogue-1931-1932- usda-caribbean-expedition-vol-1-pp.-1-452/ page/35/mode/2up and https://archive.org/ details/dorsett-travelogue-1931-1932-usda-caribbean-expedition-vol-2-pp.-453-902/page/ n39/mode/2up.
FAIRCHILD, D. 1934. Hunting useful plants in the Caribbean. Natl. Geogr. 66:705–737.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., B. JESTROW, C. HUSBY, M. GRIFFITHS, & C. LEWIS. 2018a. The Garden’s early plantings. Tropical Gard. 73(1): 43–47.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., Y. SANTAMARIA, B. JESTROW, & M. SWAN. 2019. David Fairchild in the Caribbean: Five months (1931–1932) of plant hunting on board Utowana. Tropical Gard. 74(1):54–57.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., M. SWAN, W. CINEA, N. BEAUSSEJOUR, J.M. LATHAM, & B. JESTROW. 2018. David Fairchild’s plant hunting expeditions in Haiti. Huntia 17:5–35.
FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, J., M. SWAN, B.C. BENNETT, & B. JESTROW. 2020. Early use of motion pictures in economic botany (1924, 1926): China, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. Econ. Bot. 74:363–371.
FREEMAN, W.G. & R.O. WILLIAMS. 1927. The useful and ornamental plants in Trinidad and Tobago. Government Printer.
FREID, E., J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA, & B. JESTROW. 2014. Endemic seed plants in the Bahamian Archipelago. Bot. Rev. (Lancaster) 80:204–230.
FRYXELL, P.A. 1968. A redefinition of the tribe Gossypieae. Bot. Gaz. 129:296–308.
HARRINGTON, K. 2018. Happy 200th birthday to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad. Available at www.kew.org/read-and-watch/happy-200th-birthday-to-the-royal-botanic-gardens-trinidad. Accessed July 2022.
HARRIS, A. 2015. Fruits of Eden. David Fairchild and America’s plant hunters. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, U.S.A.
HODGE, W.H. & C.O. ERLANSON. 1956. Federal plant introduction: A review. Econ. Bot. 10:299–334.
HOWARD, R.A. 1949. Atkinsia gen. nov., Thespesia, and related West Indian genera of the Malvaceae. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club. 76:89–100.
IMLE, E.P. 1978. Hevea rubber – past and future. Econ. Bot. 32:264–277.
LEAKE, H.M. 1926. The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. J. Roy. Soc. Arts 74:164–177.
LEWTON, F.L. 1933. Armouria, a new genus of malvaceous trees from Haiti. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 23:63–64.
LORD, E. 1948. Taxonomy and evolution of cotton. Nature 162:716.
MARSHALL, R.C. 1934. Trees of Trinidad and Tobago. Government Printing Office, Trinidad.
MARSHALL, R.C. 1935. The physiography and vegetation of Trinidad and Tobago– A study in plant ecology. Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K.
MONTES ESPÍN, R., I. FERNÁNDEZ-SANTANA, A.L. VITLLOCH RAMOS, L. VASALLO RODRÍGUEZ, M.A. LIMA CRUZ, & J. FRANCISCO-ORTEGA. 2021. The expeditions of the research yacht Utowana and the building of the plant living collections of the oldest botanical garden of Cuba. Webbia 76:143–166.
MOORE, W.R. 1934. The golden isles of Guale. Natl. Geogr. 65:235–264.
MOSELY, J. 2013. Exploring for plants at Isla Beata. Tropical Gard. 68(1):64–65.
MUNGEAN, G.H. 2004. Hollis, Sir (Alfred) Claud. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Available at https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-40606;jsessionid=1CF9A65A4EE9C23CA062D29ADD1E86E0. Accessed July 2022.
MYERS, J.G. 1929. Biological control. The principles of biological control. Trop. Agric. (Trinidad) 6:163–165.
NATIONAL PARKS TRUST OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS. 2022. J.R. O’Neal Botanic Gardens. Available at https://www.bvinpt.org/jr-o-neal-botanical. Accessed July 2022.
PEMBERTON, R. 2004. Historical approaches to problem solving in agriculture with reference to colonial Trinidad and Tobago. In: Proceedings of the CAES: 25th West Indies Agricultural Economics Conference, Suriname, August 2004. Pp. 72–84.
PEMBERTON, R., D. MCCOLLIN, G. MATTHEWS, & M. TOUSSAINT. 2018. Historical dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago. Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, U.S.A.
PLUCKNETT, D.L., N.J.H. SMITH, J.T. WILLIAMS, & N.M. ANISHETTY. 1987. Gene banks and the world’s food. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NY, U.S.A.
PROMUSA. 2020. Ernest E. Cheesman. Available at www.promusa.org/Ernest+E.+Cheesman. Accessed July 2022.
READ, R.W. 1966. Coccothrinax inaguensis– A new species from the Bahamas. Principes 10:29–35.
READ, R.W. 1983. Orator Fuller Cook: His itinerary. Principes 27:83–84.
ROOKS, D. 1991. Henry Caracciolo. Living World 1990–1991:14.
RUDD, V. 1983. O.F. Cook and palms. Principes 27:76–80.
SCHULTES, R.E. 1993. The domestication of the rubber tree: Economic and sociological implications. Amer. J. Econ. Sociol. 52:479–485.
STEPHENS, S.G. 1976. The origin of Sea Island cotton. Agric. Hist. 50(2):391–399.
THOMPSON, W.R. 1930. The biological control of insects and plant pests. A Report on the Organisation and Progress of the Work of Farnham House Laboratory. His Majesty’s Stationary Office, London, U.K.
TODD, A.L. 2009. Biographies of the agricultural explorers of the USDA’s Bureau of Plant Industry, 1897–1955: Part 1, A–F. i 14: 51–86.
URBAN, I. 1924. Phanerogams. Danks Bot. Ark. 7:5–10.
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Published
2022-11-29
How to Cite
Marimon, M., Oatham, M. P., Jiménez-Rodríguez, F., Santiago-Valentín, E., & Francisco-Ortega, J. (2022). The 1932 expedition of David Fairchild to the Caribbean on board Utowana: Botanizing in Beata, Saona, Trinidad, Tobago, and Tortola islands. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 16(2), 505–532. https://doi.org/10.17348/jbrit.v16.i2.1263
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BOTANICAL HISTORY
