VOL. IV.] Botanical Meetings. 295 



the editor of the Botanical Gazette made some remarks upon the 

 subject which the character of the Congress renders so extremely 

 pertinent as to make worlhy of repetition. 



"An International Congress of Botanists is an exceedingly 

 valuable thing, provided it is really what the name implies. If, 

 however, the real botanists, whom we would delight to honor, 

 stay at home, and we have let loose upon us a crowd of quasi- 

 botanists, such a class as is more apt to journey far to congresses 

 than any other, our lines will not have fallen to us in pleasant, 

 places. * * * Xhe percentage of smatterers and cranks is prob- 

 ably as large in other countries as in the United States, and it is 

 well-known that such classes travel further and talk more pro- 

 fuselj^ than any other."* 



The Congress duly met and held three meetings. No list of 

 the botanists present being given, we can only infer from the 

 names mentioned that it was in no sense representative even of 

 United States botanists. There seems to have been only one 

 foreigner present, and that one happened to be in the country in 

 charge of a French exhibit at the Chicago Exposition. There 

 was no representative even from Canada or from the Spanish 

 countries south of us. This being the case, the following reso- 

 lution was adopted without discussion: 



"Resolved, that, inasmuch as the attendance of European botanists at 

 this meeting has fallen much below the expectation of the organizing com- 

 mittee, so that the desired international character of the assemblage has not 

 been realized, the name of the meeting be the Madison Botanical Congress." 



A committee consisting of Messrs. Bessey, Britton, McMillan, 

 Tracy, and Davis, was appointed to nominate the officers of the 

 meeting, and their nominees were " unanimously confirmed." 



Nomenclature of plants was not discussed, it being voted 

 " that inasmuch as the Congress did not possess the international 

 character which had been hoped for, and could not therefore 

 legislate upon questions of nomenclature, it should not further 

 consider the subject." 



A committee on the National Herbarium reported, pointing 

 out " the unsafe condition of the present building in which the 

 Herbarium is located, its unusual exposure to loss by fire, and 



* Bot. Gaz. Feb. 1892. 



