174- TH^ PLANT WORLD. 



affords pleasure as well as profit, we distinctly disapprove of this 

 practice when it results in despoiling our woods of their chief 

 treasures. It should be the effort of everyone to leave the roots of 

 any rarity intact, unless there is some scientific purpose in securing 

 the whole plant, 



.... NOTES Af^D NEV5 



Dr. Edouard Strasburger, the distinguished German botanist, 

 was recently elected a foreign member of the National Academy of 

 Sciences. 



Professor Lucien M. Underwood, of Columbia University, is 

 spending the summer in Europe. He will look up certain American 

 types in European collections. 



Mr, Gifford Pinchot, the well-known forestry expert, has been 

 made chief of the Division of Forestry in the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, taking the position vacated by Dr. B. E. Fernow, who 

 becomes the head of the New York School of Forestry. 



The Department of Ethnology in the United States National 

 Museum is very anxious to secure the identification of every plant 

 used by North American Indians for any purpose whatever. Already 

 Mr. F. V. Coville, Botanist of the Department of Agriculture, has 

 made some contributions to literature of this kind, and they are of 

 great value. Dr. Walter Hough of this Department has prepared a 

 paper on the plants in use in the Southwest. Excellent work has also 

 been done in this line by Dr. V. Havard, as published in the Bulletin 

 of the Torrey Botanical Club. This inquiry would extend into the 

 tribes noted by the early settlers of the United States, Plants are 

 mentioned in the histories of that time, sometimes by their Indian 

 names, sometimes by the common naine of the day, but seldom by 

 any botanical title that can now be recognized. In making a report 

 upon plants for this purpose all that is necessary to say is that a cer- 

 tain plant, giving its botanical name, its English name and its Indian 

 name, is employed by a given tribe for a definite purpose. For ex- 

 ample, the following note has been handed in from California: 



AscLEPiAS incarnata: Milk-weed. Indian name unknown. Used by the women 

 of Round Valley Agency, California, for textile purposes. 



Even this is incomplete, as it lacks two or three of the elements 



of information which would go to make up a perfect description. Any 



advice on these topics, from persons traveling over the country, will 



be very gratefully received by this Department. — O. T. Mason, U. S. 



National Museum. 



