NEWS OF UNIVERSITIES, MUSEUMS, AND 



SOCIETIES. 



The following appointments have recently been made in the Botanical world : — 

 Mr. R. J. Harvey Gibson to the Professorship of Botany at University College, 

 Liverpool, the endowment of which has recently been completed by a donation from 

 Mr. Holbrook Gaskell ; Dr. Carlo Casali to be assistant in Botany at the University 

 of Rome ; Dr. C. Avetta to be Professor in the University of Padua, and Director of 

 the Botanic Gardens ; Mr. J. H. Barrage, of New College, Oxford, to be Demon- 

 strator to Professor Balfour at Edinburgh ; Dr. Richard Otto, recently assistant in the 

 Institute of Plant Physiology at the Royal Agricultural School in Berlin, to be 

 teacher of Chemistry at the Royal Pomological Institute at Proskau o/S, while 

 Dr. Fr. Kriiger of Geisenheim takes his place at Berlin. We also note that 

 Dr. V. Schiffner will temporarily take the place of Dr. Hallier as an assistant 

 in the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg in Java while Dr. Hallier makes a visit 

 to Borneo ; that Professor Julius Klein has gone to Naples to undertake some 

 botanical studies at the Zoological Station; that Dr. Robert Regel, who has for the 

 last few years been a junior curator in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens 

 at St. Petersburg, has resigned this position to become Privatdocent in the Uni- 

 versity, where he takes classes in the relation of Botany to Horticulture ; that 

 Mr. Alboff, who, at the cost of the Boissier Herbarium, has for the last six months 

 been investigating the mountain flora of the Caucasus, has returned with rich spoils ; 

 and that Dr. L. Guignard has been elected President of the Botanical Society of 

 France for 1894. We are glad to learn from the Kew Bulletin that the Government 

 of Queensland has reconsidered its decision, and that Mr. F. M. Bailey, the abolition 

 of whose post was recently reported, has been re-instated as Colonial Botanist. It 

 would be poor economy to do away with so important a post, especially when it has 

 been filled so long and ably by a man like Mr. Bailey, who has added largely to our 

 knowledge of the plant products of the colony. 



Further good news for Botanists is that the botanical explorer. Captain John 

 Donnell Smith of Baltimore, Md., has opened his private herbarium and library to 

 the students of botany of the Johns Hopkins University. This herbarium is one of 

 the largest and best selected private herbaria in existence, containing not only collec- 

 tions from all parts of the world, but also the plants collected by Mr. Smith and his 

 correspondents in Guatemala, many of which are the type specimens of new species. 

 The owner intends to present both herbarium and library to the University, so soon 

 as a building shall be offered for their reception, and provision made for their main- 

 tenance. The library contains about 1,300 volumes, chiefly relating to American 

 botany. Captain Donnell Smith has recently started on another visit to Central 

 America. 



Meanwhile Botanists nearer home are likewise busy, as the following items 

 show. Dr. Baroni of Florence intends to monograph the genus Atriplex, and requests 

 materials from his colleagues. The tenth Congress organised by the French Nationa 

 Society of Horticulture will meet at Paris during the General Horticultural Exposi- 

 tion, May 23-28. Among others, the following subjects will be discussed :— Chloro- 



