MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 41 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 



Part I of the "Catalogue of the African Plants collected by Dr. 

 Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-61," by W. P. Hiern, has recently 

 been printed by -the British Museum. It contains a portrait of 

 Welwitsch, who was a remarkable character, and a sketch of his 

 career, including an account of his travels. As is well known, he 

 was tlie discoverer of that most peculiar gymnosperm, Welwitschia, 

 which develops only two foliage leaves, these persisting during the 

 entire life of the plant. It is said that when he discovered this 

 vegetable wonder, his own sensations were "so overwhelming that 

 he could do nothing but kneel down on the burning soil and 

 gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it to be but a fig- 

 ment of the imagination." 



The "Opportunities for Research in Botany Offered by American 

 Institutions," is the title of a paper in the February Botanical 

 Gazette, which gives a general account of the facilities for graduate 

 work in botany in seventeen American universities and colleges 

 granting the doctor's degree upon the completion of three years' 

 study. It would seem to the Pacific understanding that a resume of 

 the quantity and quality of the original papers contributed to botan- 

 ical science would give one a far more reliable and just notion of what 

 the facilities amounted to. The results attained, the use to which 

 the facilities had been put, could not but prove far more convincing 

 than statistics concerning the number of sheets in an herbarium, or 

 the number of voluuies in a library, all of which things really tell«, 

 nothing of the positive or relative value of institutions. It is, 

 however, extremely interesting to note the almost amazing number 

 of mounted harbarium sheets which some of the very young institu- 

 tions possess. It is likewise equally interesting to read that the 

 oldest, the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, has over 200,- 

 000 sheets. According to the figures furnished for publication in 

 Bailey's "Botanical Collector's Handbook," the Gray Plerbarium in 

 1881 was "thought to contain over 250,000 specimens." 



The city of Los Angeles has been offered an extensive tract of 

 land, containing 3,300 acres, lying along the Los Angeles River, to 



