Six New Species of Trees and Shrubs from Mexico

Published in 1920 by the Smithsonian Institution, this volume is a technical botanical treatise authored by Paul Carpenter Standley, a prolific American botanist who spent much of his career studying the flora of the Americas. The work emerged from the systematic efforts of the United States National Herbarium to classify plant life collected during various expeditions to Mexico, reflecting the early twentieth-century academic focus on formal taxonomy and the documentation of previously undescribed biodiversity.

The publication follows the rigorous, understated design standards of contemporary scientific journals of the era. It relies on precise, technical prose and standardized morphological descriptions intended for peer review rather than aesthetic consumption. Received as a functional contribution to the field of neotropical botany, the work solidified Standley’s reputation as an authority on Mexican vegetation and served as a foundational reference for later regional floristic studies.