. N EDITORIAL / / 



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Most lovers of flowers have heard of the remarkable 

 collection of glass flowers at Harvard University, but many 

 doubtless think as the editor did that they have been greatly 

 over-praised. A visit to the collection, however, will at once 

 dispel this notion. We expected to see some glass models 

 somewhat resembling the living plants, but were quite un- 

 prepared for the marvelous exactness of the specimens. It is 

 not an exageration to say that if living plants were laid be- 

 side the glass specimens, the real could not be distinguished 

 from the artificial at a distance of a dozen feet. Minute parts 

 such as stamens, styles and hairs, are quite as correctly re- 

 produced as larger ones and the coloring is beyond criticism 

 in most cases. While it is granted that the collection is not 

 of use from the systematic standpoint, we are of the opinion 

 that the flower-lover will find few more interesting objects 

 in Boston and vicinity. The collection now numbers nearly 



six hundred specimens. 



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We probably know more about the first flowers to bloom 

 in New England than of any other section. New England 

 winters are proverbially bleak and the first flowers are there- 

 fore all the more welcome, when they do appear, besides there 

 are more botanists in New England to write about their flow- 

 ers than there are in other sections. But every section has 

 some botanist, though the flowers are not alike, and these 

 botanists are represented among the readers of the Botanist. 

 It would be interesting to know what flower is first in each 

 locality and thus we invite each of our readers to send us. on 

 a postal card, an account of their earliest flowers. In the edi- 

 tor's region the first flower is certainly not the trailing arbutus 

 for it does not grow there. Possibly the harbinger-of-spring 

 {Erigenia) would be entitled to the award, though Draha 



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