PREFACE. 
The Board of Trustees of the Missouri Botanical Garden 
have instructed the Director to edit for publication each 
year a volume setting forth the objects of the Botanical 
Garden and the School of Botany, and the results accom- 
plished by each; and summarizing the receipts and ex- 
penditures of the Board. 
The first volume of this series was prepared in the sum- 
mer of 1890, and issued in the following December. Al- 
though it contained reports up to the date of its publication, 
this was primarily intended to be an account of the estab- 
lishment of the Garden and School of Botany. The 
present volume, therefore, really begins the series of annual 
reports, and should properly contain the first annual 
flower sermon and the report of the proceedings at the first 
annual banquet given by the Board under the provisions of 
the will of Mr. Shaw, both of which appear in the preced- 
ing.volume. Owing to the small portion of 1889 during 
which the Board existed, no financial report for that year 
was made, so that the report of the officers, now pub- 
lished, covers the period from the organization of the 
Board to the end of the year 1890. 
Wiiuiam TRELEASE. 
Sr. Louis, Jan. 17, 1891. 
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