30 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



devoted was undertaken here, but, through the generosity of the New York 

 Botanical Garden, a number of species of plants were grown there from seeds 

 collected by Dr. Hugo de Vries in Holland and sent by him for the use of the 

 station. Several of these species appear to offer promising material and will be 

 cultivated at the Station for Experimental Evolution next year. Other species 

 will be discarded for various reasons, chiefly because of doubtful antecedents, 

 as in the case of Iberis, Tagetes, and other common garden species, partly 

 because of technical difficulties in the way of satisfactory characters for the 

 observation or measure of variability. 



The plants which have been grown in the garden to offer a sufficient immediate 

 incentive for thorough cultivation have been ordinary garden crops. A portion 

 of the products has been sold, resulting in a small revenue to the station, and 

 the remainder has been used as provender for the various forms of animal life 

 which are being reared. Some variations have been observed in these species, 

 and seeds have been saved to test the heritability of these variations. Several 

 species have been used also as a basis for experiments in hybridization. 



It is the settled policy of the station, however, to devote its attention as far as 

 possible to native plants, in order that results may not be vitiated by the effects 

 of unknown garden treatment in the past history of the plants. One of the 

 most important activities this season, therefore, has been the collection of the 

 seeds of native plants for cultivation. In this work important assistance has 

 been received from the New York Botanical Garden. Seeds of about one hun- 

 dred species are now in hand. The aim has been to secure seeds representing 

 as wide a range of natural orders as practicable, and an effort has been made to 

 get, among others, a number of species whose normal habitats are diverse from 

 those which will be presented at the station, with the hope of finding some 

 which will tolerate the new conditions through the production of adaptive 

 structural modifications. Accordingly, seeds have been collected on the oak 

 and pine barrens of central Long Island and on the sand dunes of Fire Island 

 beach and Bayville, Long Island ; a few days were spent in the White Moun- 

 tains, New Hampshire, collecting seeds of alpine plants. Through the kindness 

 of Mr. Arthur Stanley Pease, Andover, Massachusetts, seeds of about twenty 

 species were obtained from Gaspe & Co., Quebec, most of these species having 

 a northern range. 



Special attention has been given to securing seeds of species showing a notable 

 degree of variability, and in these species the seeds of individual plants have 

 been taken separately and the plants have been preserved as herbarium speci- 

 mens, in order to allow comparison between the offspring and the parent plant. 

 As many as fifteen types of one species have been thus isolated. 



The herbarium of the station is planned to consist of four distinct sections. 

 First, there will be a section devoted to the local flora of Cold Spring Harbor, 

 including an area having a radius of ten or fifteen miles ; second, the pedigreed 

 plants used in tracing the origin and heritability of variations will be in the 

 course of years the main section of the herbarium ; a third section will contain 

 seedlings and juvenile forms ; and in the fourth section will be preserved all 

 those aberrant forms which would be classed as abnormalities or monstrosities. 

 Several hundreds of specimens have been collected this season, belonging most 

 largely to the section devoted to the local flora, but supplying smaller numbers 

 to each of the other sections. 



