103 



good accommodations for the botanical department are furnished 

 in a part of the new Agricultural Laboratory recently completed. 



W. J. Beal. 



A Munificent Gift. Mary E. Banning, who has for several 

 years been studying the fungi of Maryland and making colored 

 drawings of them, has recently presented to the New York State 

 Museum of Natural History, a magnificent volume of illustrations 

 of the species that have come under her observation. It contains 

 one hundred and seventy-five plates, representing nearly as 

 many species belonging mostly to the Hymenomycetes and Gas- 

 teromycetes. The plates are about the same in length as those 

 of the Icones Selector Hymenomycetum of Fries and a little 

 greater in breadth. The figures are most beautifully executed, 



i 



to exhibit as great variations, in these and many other respects, 

 not to exclude the striking one of foliage coloration in autumn. 

 The value of some distiniruishinGj sex characteristic in the 

 case of seedling Ailanthus trees, could it be found, would be ap- 

 preciated by all who are acquainted with these ornamental trees. 

 To others we need only to quote a line from Dr. Gray: ** Called 

 Tree of Heaven — but whose blossoms, especially the staminate 

 ones, are redolent of anything but ' airs from heaven.'*' It is 



■ 



needless to say that it is desirable to exclude the males from the / 



city streets. Byron D. Halsted. '^ 



New Brunswick, N. J., Feb. 12, 1890. 



Burning of the Botanical Muscnni and Laboratory of the 

 Michigan Agricultural College. On the night of IMarch 23d, 

 our Botanical Laboratory and Museum was destroyed by fire. 

 We were able to carry out and i)rescrve all the books, charts and 

 apparatus, including the mounted portion of the herbarium. The 

 Wheeler herbarium, recently purchased, containing over seven 

 thousand species, including the most complete collection of Michi- 

 gan plants ever brought together, was lost, together with a part 

 of the electrotypes to illustrate my second volume on grasses. 

 If life and health are spared, we shall have, in a few years, a 

 much better building and a finer museum. For the present, very 



painted in water colors and are very life-like in expression and 

 accurate in detail. They are accompanied by manuscript de- 



