14 
FLOWER STRUCTURE AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF DICOTYLEDONS 
By ALFRED GUNDERSEN 
During the year studies were made in a number of families 
including Hamamelidaceae, Magnoliaceae and Caryophyllaceae. 
Miss Maud H. Purdy added details to a number of earlier 
drawings. 
In July through the favor of Dr. John T. Howell of the Cali- 
fornia Academy of Sciences we obtained a fresh plant of Frankenia 
grandiflora, of which we had had only dried material. A color 
study was completed and details of development show many 
resemblances with the Caryophyllaceae. In particular the bud 
stage of Caryophyllaceae suggests the adult stage of Frankenia. 
About sixty of Miss Purdy’s drawings, and some from pub- 
lished figures were combined into two charts to illustrate flower 
structures in seventy families; these were printed in the September 
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. In the accompanving 
article a tentative arrangement of Dicotyledons, in part inter- 
mediate between the classic system of Engler and that of Bentham 
and Hooker is proposed. The nine groups adopted are repre- 
sented by the genera Magnolia, Betula, Cistus, Malva, Geranium, 
Myrtus, Dianthus, Fraxinus and Rubia. 
HERBARIUM RESEARCH AND FIELD WorRK 
By Henry Ik. SVENSON 
During the past year the extensive annotated catalogue of 
plants collected by me in Western Ecuador and Peru has been 
finished. A report, together with photographs of the region, 
description of floral areas, and line drawings by Miss Purdy, is 
ready for publication. The area varies from desert to tropical 
rain forest often within the distance of a few miles, and therefore 
represents one of the most remarkable climatic transitions to be 
found in the world. The cause seems to lie in the drying south- 
erly winds which blow off the cold Humboldt Current during the 
greater part of the year, and the precipitation of fogs on adjacent 
mountains lying almost directly on the equator. The region is 
covered mostly by thorn-bush and grasslands, strikingly similar 
In appearance to the thorn-bush plains of East Africa. 
