Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. a St. Louis, Mo., March, 1913 No. 3 
THE LABORATORIES IN THE MISSOURI 
BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
Botanical laboratories are the work-shops of those who 
study plants scientifically. They are meant for research and 
instruction, and are consequently a necessary part of any 
modern botanical establishment. Other things being equal, 
those laboratories are most favorably located which enjoy to 
the fullest extent the facilities offered by such rich collections 
of living plants as are maintained for scientific as well as for 
exhibition purposes in the best botanical gardens. Generally 
speaking, the garden feature of botanical work is appreciated 
by the public, since the living plants are interesting in them- 
selves; nevertheless, friends of the Missouri Botanical 
Garden and of the scientific work may be interested in a brief 
account of the development of the laboratories and of the 
nature of the work for which they are being equipped. 
Botanical Gardens Educational_—In the first place it is to 
be remembered that the important botanical gardens of the 
world are educational institutions, and for the most part they 
represent much of the botanical endeavor of a state or uni- 
versity — garden, laboratories and museum constituting. 
what are collectively known as the “Botanical Garden,” or 
the “Botanical Institute.” In the case of the Missouri 
Botanical Garden, certain phases of the work are intimately 
and appropriately connected with Washington University, 
through the Henry Shaw School of Botany, in which all 
graduate students working at the Garden are registered. This 
affiliation, effected by the founder, and strengthened by the 
development of research in the Garden, is obviously of the 
greatest mutual benefit. The Garden offers its whole facili- 
ties to serious students, and the University, charged with 
the maintenance and development of rational educational 
standards, encourages breadth of educational achievement. 
The Laboratory Represents Instruction and Research.— 
The popular concept of a botanical garden, unfortunately, 
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