Record. lvii 



Dr. Evers presented the following report, which was ordered 

 spread on the records of the Academy: — 



EN MEMORIAM: DR. CHARLES O. CURTMAN. 



In the death of Dr. Charles O. Curtman, the Academy of Science of St. 

 Louis has been bereft of one of its illustrious members. He was one of the 

 select few who combined great learning, the faculty of original research and 

 teaching, with a happy, jovial disposition and the modesty of the true 

 scientist. The St. Louis Academy of Science, which has many times had 

 occasion to listen to his brilliant discourses, will find the void in its mem- 

 bership, due to his death, irreparable. 



His memory will not only live in the minds of those whose fortune it 

 was to know him personally, and in the archives of the Academy of 

 Science of St. Louis, but it is graven indelibly on the leaves of the eternal 

 book of science. Though dead, he still lives. 



One person was proposed for active membership. 



June 1, 1896. 



President Gray in the chair, eight persons present. 



Professor Milton Updegraff read a paper on the flexure of 

 telescopes. 



Professor J. M. Stedman, of Columbia, Missouri, was elected 

 an active member. 



Three persons were proposed for active membership. 



October 19, 1896. 



President Gray in the chair, twenty persons present. 



The President briefly addressed the members of the 

 Academy, welcoming them after the summer recess. 



Professor William Trelease exhibited a Tropical American 

 orchid, Catasetum Gnomus, which he had brought from 

 the Botanical Garden, explaining that this genus presents in 

 its flowers one of the most remarkable instances of irritability 

 known in the vegetable kingdom, inasmuch as each of the 

 staminate flowers is provided with two appendages, or 

 tentacles, so placed that an insect, in entering the flower to 

 gnaw the fleshy labellum, must of necessity touch one tentacle 

 or the other, the result of a slight touch on either being 

 propagated through its length to the upper portion of the 



