BOTANIC GARDENS. 321 



force of men varying from eight to fifteen with the requirements 

 of the season. 



The institute is an oblong brick structure, one hundred and 

 seventy feet in length by sixty-five in width, standing in the 

 southeastern corner of the grounds. This building is two-storied 

 in part, the second story being devoted to the use of the director 

 and his family. The first floor accommodates the director's 

 ofiices, private laboratory, and experimental rooms, dark rooms, 

 laboratories for physiology and morphology, the lecture room, 

 and a museum containing the Gaertner collection. 



The laboratories are supplied with a set of physiological appa- 

 ratus embracing the standard forms, a large number of which 

 were originally designed to facilitate researches undertaken here 

 in the last twenty years. The museum contains the von Mohl 

 collection of microscopes, which represents the development of 

 this instrument from the time of Joseph Gaertner to that of Hof- 

 meister, more than one hundred years. The Gaertner museum 

 contains the carpological collections of Joseph Gaertner, on which 

 his work De Fructibus, etc., was based, in the labeled bottles as 

 prepared by him. For greater safety these bottles were inclosed 

 in larger bottles and labeled by von Mohl, and the thoughtful ob- 

 server looks forward to the time when a third casing of glass 

 will be added to protect the prized handwriting of von Mohl. In 

 this museum are also to be found the dried specimens of hybrids 

 and seeds, drawings, manuscripts, and published works of Karl 

 Friedrich Gaertner, and a large number of preparations for the 

 microscope made by von Mohl and Hof meister. The commodious 

 lecture room is provided with all necessary appliances for suc- 

 cessful demonstrations charts, prepared specimens, wood and 

 paper models, etc. 



The investigator who comes here to undertake the solution of 

 some problem in botany meets a body of congenial workers whose 

 earnest enthusiasm is quickly contagious. He is furnished with 

 ample space in well-lighted rooms and any necessary apparatus. 

 If it is necessary to construct temporary apparatus to carry for- 

 ward his experiments, a stock of material is at hand and he may 

 have the intelligent assistance of the " Hausmeister," who has had 

 a score of years of experience in such work in this institute. If 

 the problem requires the application of delicate or complex ma- 

 chinery, he may call to his assistance Herr Eugen Albrecht 

 " Universitats-mechaniker " whose skill in designing effective 

 apparatus for use in the physiology of plants and animals is 

 known round the world. The library of the institute and that of 

 the director contain a large number of works of the more promi- 

 nent botanical authors, and a blank form properly filled will bring 

 to his desk almost anything bearing upon his work from the 



