94 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
have met with marked success and the area devoted to date 
culture—situated principally in the Salton Basin of Southern 
California—has gradually increased. While the industry 
has not as yet assumed very great proportions there is every 
reason to believe that it will as time goes on, especially when 
varieties, either introduced or locally developed, are ob- 
tained which are particularly suited to the conditions in the 
arid southwest. 
NOTES 
Dr. L. R. Jones, Professor of Plant Pathology in Wiscon- 
sin University, visited the Garden July 22. 
Dr. L. H. Harvey, Professor of Biology at the State Normal 
School, Kalamazoo, Michigan, spent July 14 at the Garden. 
Mr. G. H. Bretnall, Professor of Biology at the State 
Aine) School, La Crosse, Wisconsin, visited the Garden on 
y «i. : 
A party of 50 real estate men, mostly from Kansas City, 
were conducted through the Garden by Mr. Thompson, 
Assistant Botanist to the Garden, on July 6. 
One of the most striking outdoor floral displays in the 
Garden at the present time is that of the American lotus 
(Nelumbiwm luteum), a large number of plants of which 
are flowering in the small pool in the North American tract, 
directly west of the new director’s residence. 
Professors A. H. Hall and E. B. Babcock, both of the 
University of California, visited the Garden late in June. 
Professor Hall spent considerable time consulting certain 
sections of the herbarium, and Professor Babcock examined 
some of the work being done in the Garden in plant breeding. 
More visitors to the Garden are availing themselves of 
the Sa’ ay pee conducted trips. The party which 
was condu through the Garden on July 18 numbered 
thirty and showed much interest in the rice, cotton, and 
sugar plantations, as well as in the newly acquired giant 
cactus and date palm. 
About a thousand plants of the button snakeroot (Liatris 
spicata) are at present in flower along the edge of one of the 
knolls in the southwestern part of the main garden. This 
plant, with its long showy spikes of lavender-rose flowers, 
grows wild in Missouri, the specimens at present flowering 
in the Garden having been obtained from a railroad embank- 
ment near Montgomery City, Missouri. 
