Chrysobalanaceae

While I was doing my PhD, when you're doing a PhD on taxonomy, you need a lot of the dried pressed herbarium specimens to evaluate the plant family you're working on.

And it so happened I started, as I had been asked to, on the African plants in this one plant family, the coco plum family, Chrysobalanaceae.

And I saw that the problems at the generic level, which was the subject of my doctorate, were actually much more in South America than in Africa.

And so I borrowed a large number of specimens from the New York Botanical Garden.

And if you were to join an expedition in Suriname for three months and then go on to New York, that would pay for your fare and things.

So I thought, well, that's even better.

I can go and study in the rainforest and see the Chrysobalanaceae in a field and do field work.

So I joined the New York Botanical Garden Expedition there and spent three months there.