BOTANY AT THE BOSTON MEETING. 



The fiftieth anniversary meeting- of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, held in Boston during the last part of 

 August, proved a memorable one in the history of the organization, 

 nearly one thousand delegates being in attendance. 



Of this number the botanists, and those interested in plants, 

 formed quite a proportion. There are at these meetings three dif- 

 ferent outlets for botanical activity. In the first place we have the 

 Botanical Society of America, an exclusive organization whose mem- 

 bership is limited to professional botanists of high standing. While 

 having no official connection with the Association, this body ineets 

 usually just before the latter at the same place, and the sessions for 

 the reading of papers are open to the public. The feature of its 

 program this year was a most interesting paper by Professor D. T. 

 MacDougal on saprophytism and parasitism among our native Ameri- 

 can orchids. Professor MacDougal has kindly consented to present 

 the essential facts embodied in this paper in an article to be pub- 

 lished later in The Plant World. 



The members of the Association who are interested in botany 

 constitute Section G, and it is here that we find a wide diversity of 

 topics. The Association contains many amateur as well as profes- 

 sional botanists, and as there are usually a number of papers of 

 popular interest, the outside attendance is frequently large. It was 

 a significant circumstance at this season's meeting, as indicative of 

 the modern tendency in botanical study, that by far the greater 

 number of papers related to cytology or cell structure and develop- 

 ment, there being ver}' few systematic subjects, or even discussions 

 of plant distribution. From the enthusiasm and universally large 

 attendance, however, it was manifest that there is a widespread and 

 growing interest in the facts of plant life — an interest which even a 

 mass of technicalities seems merely to render more keen. Probably 

 this was due in a large measure to the influence of the New England 

 Botanical Club, an organization whose nlembers, embracing substan- 

 tially all the botanists of Eastern New England, have accomplished 

 much toward popularizing and dignifying the science. The club 

 maintained a headquarters at which all visiting botanists were invited 

 to register, and the room was effectively decorated with the rarer wild 

 flowers of the region. They also extended every possible courtesy in 

 facilitating collecting excursions and visits to points of interest. 



The third avenue through which papers may be presented is 

 known as the Botanical Club of the Association, and is the least 

 technical of the three bodies. Like the Botanical Society, it has no 



