?oS'] Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. 103 



PAPER. 



Owing to a misunderstanding, the lantern had not been 

 secured for illustrating the paper by Mr. F. Chapman, A.L.S., 

 entitled " A Sketch of the Geological History of Australian 

 Plants : Second Paper. — The Mesozoic Flora." It was there- 

 fore decided to postpone the reading of the paper until it was 

 possible to display the slides prepared at the same time. 



NOTES ON WILD-FLOWER EXHIBITION. 



An interesting discussion arose as to bettering the exhibition 

 of wild-flowers in future years. Mr. F. Keep suggested that 

 visitors should be requested to move in one direction only, but 

 this was considered impracticable. Mr. D. Best drew atten- 

 tion to the absence of common names, and suggested that if 

 the flowers were sold by auction a larger sum would be raised. 

 Mr. J. Stickland thought that greater publicity might be given 

 by means of calico signs, and the object of the exhibition had 

 not been stated in the advertisements. The hon. secretary 

 stated that the displaying of signs had been refused at the 

 Tourists' Bureau and the Town Hall. 



It was suggested by Mr. Best that prizes might be offered 

 for the best exhibits of certain kinds of flowers suitable for 

 sale by auction. Mr. G. Coghill said that the complaint that 

 certain exhibits were missing before the closing of the ex- 

 hibition was probably due to the lady flower-sellers, who had 

 not a sufficient supply of flowers to meet the demands of the 

 public, and therefore commandeered some of the exhibits. He 

 considered it inadvisable to offer prizes. If such were decided 

 on, then they should be for flowers grown in school gardens by 

 school children. Miss Nethercote thought that many of the 

 flowers taken from exhibits had been used in the effort to 

 make a systematic exhibit of the flowers on view. Mr. F. 

 Wisewould said that had he known there would have been such 

 demand for certain flowers he could have provided much larger 

 quantities, and would do so on another occasion. Mr. P. R. H. 

 St. John deprecated the offering of prizes, which would only 

 add to the expenses of the exhibition. Mr. H. B. Williamson 

 referred to the absence of popular names, saying that it was 

 quite impossible in the limited time available for the few persons 

 capable of doing so to name a tithe of the specimens exhibited. 

 He suggested that printed certificates might be offered for 

 collections of flowers forwarded from schools. 



Mr. F. Chapman said that the microscopists suffered from 

 the small space allotted to them. So many people were 

 interested in the exhibits that the table became congested, 

 and persons were unable to move in any direction, Mr. J. 



