121 



passing through the building, endeavoring in the account of 

 each department to give not simply the additions that have 

 been made to it and the work that has been bestowed upon 

 it during the year, but also some general statement of what 

 the collection is as a whole, since no connected account which 

 should combine all the departments, has ever been attempted 

 of recent years. Owing to the absence of some of the 

 Curators, the statements with regard to their collections 

 must be very meagre, but such as they are, they are offered 

 for your consideration. 



The principal collection upon the lower floor is that of 

 Botany. The Curator reports it to be in admirable preser- 

 vation ; the plants are arranged in Manilla paper covers and 

 are classified according to Endlicher's Genera Plantarum, 

 the object of this classification being that any one can readily 

 turn to any cover, by ascertaining the number of the desired 

 genus in Endlicher's work, as the covers of the plants bear 

 numbers in accordance and are ranged in numerical sequence 

 around the room. The collection of plants is large, and 

 represents to a great extent the Flora of North America, 

 besides being rich in European forms. The great bulk of 

 the Herbarium was the result of Dr. Benjamin D. Greene's 

 botanical correspondence with the first botanists of Europe 

 for twenty-five years, as well as a constant interchange of 

 sj^ecunens with. American collectors. Some of his collections 

 w^ere very valuable, such as a suite of the plants collected iu 

 Franklin's Arctic Expedition. Among the more interesting 

 acquisitions were Lindheimer's and Wright's Texan and New 

 Mexican collections, Vauthier's BraziHan plants, Beitero's 

 ChiUan collections, and various local ones, which remain as 

 yet undistributed, as they were received from Dr. Greene, 

 though they have been thoroughly examined and are fi*ee 

 from danger of the ravages of insects. During the last few 

 years the Society has come into the possession of very valua- 

 .ble collections of cryj^togamous plants. Bailey's AlgiB are 

 well known as an extensive suite of the highest importance 

 as authentic forms of the author's own description ; the 

 Fungi presented by the Curator himself, the fruit of many 



