143 
comprises about 4,000 specimens, and is Spee rich in Long 
Island and local flora material. 
On July 3, 1919, Mrs. Elizabeth H. Reichling, 298 Greene 
Ave., Brooklyn, presented to the Botanic Garden the fungus her- 
barium of her son, Gerard Alston Reichling, as a memorial to 
him. Mr. Reichling was instructor in German in the Extension 
Teaching department of Columbia University, in 1914-16, and 
was an amateur collector and student of fungi. His collection 
numbered 1,287 specimens of fungi and seven specimens of 
mosses. 
NOTES 
Mr. Free, head gardener, acted as judge at the annual dahlia 
and vegetable show of the Philipstown Garden Club, near Cold 
Spring-on-Hudson, on October third. On July 28 and 29 Mr. 
Free was in Rochester, where he secured cuttings of many varie- 
ties of lilac through the courtesy of the Rochester Department 
of Parks, of which Mr. John Dunbar has for many years been 
the efficient horticulturist. Highland Park, Rochester, contains 
what is doubtless the most complete collection of varieties of the 
common lilac to be found in North America. It is reported that 
1 “Lilac Sunday,” which occurs about the last of May each 
year, as many as 50,000-60,000 people visit the collection. 
Appreciation by Public Schools of what the Garden is doing 
for the Children—The following letter, dated March 13, 1919, 
has been received by the curator of elementary instruction from 
a teacher in Public School No. 148, Brooklyn: ‘The demand for 
courses at the Botanic Garden is ever increasing among the chil- 
dren of Public School 148. I have turned down very many chil- 
dren each week. It has gotten so now that the parents come to 
school and beg me to permit their children to go to the Garden to 
take courses. To these poor people of this dreadful district the 
Garden is a Paradise, something great and wonderful. I have a 
class of model children who have begged to be allowed to go. 
Could you fit them in somewhere? I trust you will be able to 
find some time for these children who are so hungry for the 
things of nature.” | 

