Exhibits— Botany 



The task of rearranging and reinstalling exhibits in the Hall of North 

 American Trees (Hall 26, Charles F. Millspaugh Hall) was continued 

 throughout the year and the entire hall soon can be reopened. Nine- 

 teen exhibits were reinstalled, most of the work for which was carried 

 on jointly by Curator of Exhibits Emil Sella, Technician Frank 

 Boryca, and Preparator Walter Huebner, with the assistance of 

 Artist-Preparator Samuel H, Grove, Jr. Four new branches of coni- 

 fers were prepared from original material by Curator Sella and added 

 to these exhibits: eastern hemlock {Tsuga canadensis), Norway pine 

 (Pinus resinosa), red spruce (Picea rubens), and pitch pine (Piniis 

 rigida) . An attractive reproduction of a fruiting branch of madrono 

 {Arbutus Menziesii), an evergreen tree of the Pacific coast, was com- 

 pleted by Artist-Preparator Grove and installed in Martin A. and 

 Carrie Ryerson Hall (Hall 29, Plant Life) with the heath family. 

 A new mural of Gunnera magnifica, the work of E. John Pfiffner, 

 Staff Artist, shows the strange gigantic herb found at altitudes 

 around ten thousand feet in the Andes of Colombia, a remarkable 

 plant that was discovered in 1944 by Professor Harold St. John 

 while he was a member of the Cinchona Mission. 



The Board of Trustees honored Stanley Field on the occasion 

 of his fiftieth year as President of the Museum by designating the 

 collection of plant models on display in Hall 29 and other halls of 

 the Museum as "The Stanley Field Collection of Plant Models" 

 (see page 23). An engraved plaque commemorating this event was 

 installed in Hall 29. 



The special exhibit in Stanley Field Hall from October 4 through 

 October 12 of three hundred living orchid plants and an equal num- 

 ber of fresh-cut orchids (see page 26) was shown through the co- 

 operation of the Illinois Orchid Society and some seventy-five orchid 

 growers of the Middle West, California, Florida, and Hawaii. The 

 plants were dispayed in a prefabricated greenhouse erected for the 

 purpose and furnished through the courtesy of Lord and Burnham, 

 greenhouse contractors. The background exhibit included water- 

 colors of orchids from various parts of the world (by H. Gilbert 

 Foote, a Chicago artist), a series of large published prints of orchids 

 from the Botanical Library of the Museum, copies of the Museum's 

 publications on tropical American orchids, and selected herbarium 

 specimens of orchids, native and foreign. In planning, arranging, 

 and setting up this exhibit the staff of the Museum was assisted 

 most effectively by Gilbert S. Daniels of Evanston, vice-president of 

 the Illinois Orchid Society, and by several members of that society. 



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