6 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
institution so beneficently placed at their disposal by Henry 
Shaw. 
EXPEDITION TO CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMBRICA FOR 
ORCHIDS 
While the collection of orchids at the Missouri Botanical 
Garden has long been recognized as one of the best of its 
kind in the country, it was thought desirable to secure a much 
larger number of the showy species in order to make our 
orchid displays even more attractive. The splendid gift of 
the late D. S. Brown added hundreds of plants to the collec- 
tion, but we still lacked in any quantity the varieties which 
in the eyes of the public constitute the most important part 
of an orchid show. Owing to the war and the increased dif- 
ficulty of getting plants from the tropics into the United 
States, it became necessary to send some one to the native 
home of these plants in order to secure them. Mr. George H. 
Pring, Horticulturist to the Garden, agreed to go and on the 
first of April left St. Louis for Bogota, Colombia. No single 
undertaking of the Garden has ever received anything like 
the publicity given to this expedition. Not only the local 
press but newspapers throughout this country and abroad, as 
well as all the leading horticultural and floricultural maga- 
zines, have devoted an unusual amount of space to recording 
the results of Mr. Pring’s trip. In addition, Mr. Pring has 
given repeatedly the illustrated talk first delivered at the 
Trustees’ Banquet on October 10, and has on more than one 
occasion broadcasted over the radio his interesting experiences. 
In the September, October, and November numbers of. the 
BULLETIN a more detailed account of the results of the expedi- 
tion are to be found. Suffice it to say that no effort made by 
the Garden during its existence has been so fruitful in adding 
to its permanent collections not only orchids of great value 
but also tree ferns, economic plants, and other plants of much 
popular and scientific interest. 
INCREASED INTEREST IN AND APPRECIATION OF THE 
GARDEN 
The number of visitors to the Garden, now over three 
times that of a decade ago, is but one evidence of the im- 
portant position which this institution holds in the com- 
