1912] Field Excursions of New England Botanical Club 71 
FIELD EXCURSIONS OF THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL 
CLUB.} 
As a result of the first field day of the New England Botanical 
Club, centering about Providence, Rhode Island, on May 30, 1911, 
the collections of the Club gained more than 800 specimens and several 
species not previously known from Rhode Island. This pioneer 
experiment of the members of the Club in making a concerted effort 
to develop the Club Herbarium was considered a great success, and 
the experience of last year justifies the continuance of such field days. 
The importance of such outings cannot be over-estimated, for not 
only does the Club Herberium gain materially but the members have 
an unusual opportunity for congenial field-trips and exchange of 
experiences. 
And now that the Club is so soon to have commodious quarters 
with fireproof cases and other up-to-date facilities for the development 
of its Herbarium, the ideal toward which we have been modestly 
working can be more readily accomplished. As already known to 
some members of the Club, the aim of our Curators has been to make 
our Herbarium thoroughly representative of the flora of New England: 
a collection which shall show the distribution of each species and 
variety in such detail that from it it will be possible to work out with 
exactness the natural floral areas of the region. No such herbarium 
for an extensive area exists in America and no such exhaustive study 
of a large area has been undertaken with us, but in some parts of 
Europe very gratifying results have been achieved, and in Great 
Britain the renewal of interest in such work, already well started by 
H. C. Watson and two Botanical Exchange Clubs, has recently 
become very obvious under the leadership of Dr. C. E. Moss of 
Cambridge University. There is no theoretical reason why we in 
New England should not bring together such a collection as suggested 
above; and when this aim is accomplished we shall be in a position 
to draw from our collections conclusions upon questions of plant- 
distribution which will be of far-reaching importance. It is too soon 
to outline with anything but the crudest approximation natural 
floral areas within our limits; such large districts as the Cape Cod 
region, the Housatonic Valley, the White Mountains, the eastern 
coast of Maine, etc. are known in a general way, but we certainly 
1 Communicated by the Committee on Field Excursions at the meeting of March 1, 
1912. 
