468 Botanical Society of Ca7iada. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. KINGSTON. 



The eigbth meeting of this Society was held in the Convocation 

 Hall of Queen's College on Friday evening, 15th N'ov., the Rev. 

 Professor Williamson, LL.D., Vice-President, in the chair. 



The chairman opened the proceedings by a short introductory 

 address, in which he alluded to the recent origin of the Society, 

 notwithstanding which, it had already struck its roots deeply into 

 the soil, passed the period of youth, and grown up into a goodly 

 tree, whose branches were spread far and wide. Already, he 

 said, contributions and applications for membership were almost 

 daily being received not only from various parts of Upper and 

 Lower Canada and the adjoining States, but also from Britain, 

 and France, and Italy, and Germany, and even our Australian 

 colonies. And not only so ; the Society, young as it was, had 

 already acquired the maturity requisite to enable it to bring forth 

 abundant fruit. Its contributions to science, recorded in the 

 "Annals" of the Society, and in numerous scientific journals of 

 Canada and Britain, were already well known. A Botanic Gar- 

 den had also been established in Kingston, the first of the kind 

 in Canada, and one that might be expected ere long not only to 

 add to the range of scientific knowledge, but also to yield valuable 

 economic results from the experiments that would be undertaken 

 as to the plants suited to our climate. A public Herbarium was 

 also in course of formation, to which, as in other countries, the 

 student might repair to resolve his doubts in the determination 

 of obscure species. At this season of the year, the plants which 

 form the objects of the botanist's study go to rest; so also the bo- 

 tanist himself withdraws from his pleasant and healthful researches 

 in the fields and woods ; but, as there is no real rest in the case 

 of the plant, as the tissues go on developing, and the juices are 

 being elaborated even beneath the snows of winter, so the botan- 

 ist also does not now pass into a state of inactivity. Our winter 

 meetings begin, the members come together, and an opportunity 

 is aftorded of elaborating and making known the results of the 

 summer's work. The chairman concluded by alluding to the 

 valuable aid that had been derived from Prof. Gray and Sir Wrn. 

 Logan in forwarding the objects of the Society, and expressed a 

 hope that our Provincial Government would view the labors of 

 this Society in the same favorable light in which they were view- 

 ed by scientific men, and give to -the Society that countenance 



