The Field Museum acquired its first botanical collections from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 when Charles F. Millspaugh, a physician by training but an avid botanist and naturalist, began soliciting donations of exhibited collections for the Museum. These were largely materials of economic use: collections of gums, resins, fibers, oils, waxes, tannins, dyes, starches, cereals, sugars, spices, medicinal plants, timbers and cabinet woods offered by more than twenty countries. In this manner the Department of Botany began with a fine collection of cabinet woods, forest products and useful plant products. These original specimens today comprise the Economic Botany collection at The Field Museum. Millspaugh, who in 1887 published a major work on American medicinal plants, became the first appointee to the scientific staff as the Curator of Botany. The herbarium was established in 1894, and numbered 50,000 specimens by 1898. Millspaugh made important collections in the Yucatan Peninsula in the period 1894 -1896, and in the West Indies during 1899-1907. From this time on, the Museum concentrated its efforts on the American tropics, sponsoring or co-sponsoring more than sixty botanical expeditions to the region, and establishing one of the world's major collections of Central and South American plants. Some major contributors to the development of the collections are noted below. Jesse H. Greenman collected extensively in Mexico and Central America from 1904-1912. J. Francis Macbride, who joined the staff in 1922, worked in Peru and initiated one of the department's major floristic works, the Flora of Peru, (8,508 pages of which have been published to date). Paul C. Standley joined the staff in 1927 and began extensive fieldwork in Central America. Since Standley frequently did not make duplicates, many of his collections at Field Museum are unique, at least within United States herbaria. Among his many publications are The Flora of the Lancetilla Valley (Honduras), The Flora of Costa Rica, The Rubiaceae of Colombia, also of Ecuador, of Bolivia and of Venezuela. In 1938 he began The Flora of Guatemala, which also attracted many new collections to the Museum. Standley's many achievements, together with a phenomenal memory that allowed him to identify on sight an estimated 20,000 species from Mexico and Central America, earned him an enduring place in the history of American botany. Standley was later joined in the Flora of Guatemala project by Julian Steyermark, who joined the staff in 1937 and made numerous valuable collections in Guatemala and contributed to the published flora. Steyermark also completed the Flora of Missouri while at Field Museum, and deposited his study specimens here. In the 1940's, Steyermark initiated collecting programs in Venezuela and Ecuador, and The Field Museum's holdings of these early collections are not duplicated elsewhere in North America. Louis O. Williams joined the staff in 1960 and supervised the completion of the Flora of Guatemala (thirteen parts, 6,528 pages). Williams also collected widely in Central America and developed an active research program that supported the work of other collectors, such as Antonio Molina of Honduras. Williams served as departmental chair from 1964-1973, and in 1965 he appointed William Burger to begin working on the Flora of Costa Rica project. While neotropical floristics of flowering plants has been a major focus in the history of the department, several staff have distinguished themselves in other areas: Llewelyn Williams in economic botany; Francis Drouet in algae; B. E. Dahlgren in palms; and Theodor Just in evolutionary biology and paleobotany.