THE PLANT WORLD 189 



They have made our success possible, and we turn our faces toward the 

 next semi-decade with buoyant hope. The journal will be enlarged 

 and improved from time to time, as it has been in the past, for while 

 we take pride in what we have accomplished, this is but a measure of 

 what we hope to do in the future. 



OuE i)assing reference to the "American Botanical Club " in con- 

 nection with the " Gray Memorial Chapter " has elicited corrections 

 from officers of both organizations. Dr. George P. Ells, of Norwalk, 

 Conn., General Secretary pro. tem. of the latter body, states that it is 

 still in existence, and is now considering a proposition from the Presi- 

 dent of the American Botanical Club for amalgamation. The latter 

 officer, on behalf of his society, writes as follows : " In justice to The 

 Plant World, as well as to the Gray Memorial Botanical Chapter and 

 the Botanical Club, permit me to say that the club is in no way a revi- 

 val of the Chapter. The Chapter is still in existence, although we have 

 nearly all its members upon the Botanical Club's list. The spirit of 

 both societies is the same, — to find out all that is interesting about 

 plants — but each is going about the matter in its own way." 



We are indeed glad to learn that an organization with the long and 

 useful career of the Gray Memorial Chapter is still carrying on its 

 work. And in this connection the proposition made by the President 

 of the American Botanical Club for amalgamation arouses both our 

 sense of the ridiculous and our wonder at so remarkable a display of 

 inconsistency. It will be remembered by those of our readers who hap- 

 pen to be acquainted with The Ame7ncan Botanist (^the genial editor 

 of which is likewise the President of the American Botanical Club), that 

 in the last issue of that periodical the Wild Flower Preservation Society 

 was roundly scored for having presumed to suggest to the Society for 

 the Protection of Native Plants, that a union would be desirable. It 

 was said that we "made a bad matter worse " by publishing the circum- 

 stance of the offer and its declination. If the Wild Flower Preserva- 

 tion Society was presumptuous in proposing to include in its national 

 scope a body that had been in existence only two or three years, what 

 are we to think of the action of a still younger society in offering to 

 " amalgamate " with the Gray Memorial Botanical Chapter, which has 

 been in existence a decade or more? We believe that most of our 

 readers will consider it an unparalleled piece of effrontery. The under- 

 lying motive is not at first apparent, but can be readily understood 

 when it is realized that the Chapter originally had a publication 

 organ of its own, known as the Asa Gray Bulletin, which in its later 

 years was a friendly rival of The Plant World ; that the Bulletin was 



