17 



on pages 47-65 following. IJuring the year Contributions num- 

 bers 82-86 have been published emboch'ing results of investigations 

 by the Garden personnel. 



Tni-: Lip,RARY 



The annual re])ort of the librarian (])]\ 104-108) records the 

 accessions and activities for the year. Pjihliographical and other 

 services to readers steadily increase, as does also the numl)er of 

 readers. The number of volumes (20,543) and ])amphlets (17,- 

 149), to a total of more than 37,600. has nearh- reached the 

 ca])acity of the shel\-ing, and this is one of numerous reasons that 

 make it urgent to begin now to plan for an extension to the 

 Laboratory Building. 



The hbrarian calls attention to the fact that binding still re- 

 mains the greatest need of the library. This need increases each 

 year by the recci])t of current numbers of 1010 ])eriodicals (the 

 figure for 1938). The number of volumes loaned to other insti- 

 tutions was more than twice as great as the numl)cr Ixjrrowed, and 

 the number of users (4.331 ) was 441 greater than a }'ear ago — an 

 increase of more than 11 per cent. 



Among the rare items accessioned was Das Eiifdckic Gchciniiiiss 

 dcr Natiir ini Bait iind in dcr Bcfnichfituf/ dcr Bluincn (" The 

 secret of nature re\ealed with reference to the structure and pol- 

 lination of flowers"), l)y Christian Konrad Sprengel. Berlin. 

 1793. This classic, only rarely oiTered in the trade, is one of the 

 foundational works on the subject of the iiollination of flowers 

 by insects. The " secret " revealed was that " nature " apparently 

 intended that no flower should be ])ollinated by its own jiollen, 

 and that the peculiar structures of flowers, hitherto a myster}- to 

 l)otanists, could be explained (and only so) b}- the relation of 

 flowers to insects that visit them and so Ijring about cross-pollina- 

 tion. " Here," says Sachs, the historian of l)otany, " was the first 

 attem])t to ex])lain the origin (jf organic forms from definite rela- 

 tions to their en^■ironment."' It was Darwin who called the at- 

 tention of the scientific ^\()rl(l to the imjjortance of Sprengel's 

 almost forgotten work and its bearing on the role of natural selec- 

 tion in the origin of new forms of plant life. This "secret" 

 which, in Sprengel's day, was a nn'stery to e\'cn the most learned 



