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herbarium specimens in the Museum were transferred to the Gar- 
den for temporary use, but they had long since ceased to be suit- 
able, either in size or type, and the phanerogamic collections are 
now being transferred as rapidly as possible to new steel cases, 
made according to our own specifications. The maximum capa- 
city of the new cases is about 21,000 sheets, or only one fifth 
of the number now on hand. The cryptogamic collections have 
also reached the full capacity of the cases available. 
Investigations 
Local Flora.—At the time of the appointment of Mr. Taylor 
as curator of plants, in the spring of 1911, he was at work ona 
phytogeographical study of the local flora. The limits of the area 
included in the term local flora are roughly delimited by a circle 
having a radius of one hundred miles from New York City as a 
center. The area was defined several years ago by a committee 
of the Torrey Botanical Club, and comprises certain arbitrary in- 
clusions, including the entire states of New Jersey and Connecti- 
cut. In harmony with the terms of an agreement between our 
Garden and the New York Botanical Garden, at the time of Mr. 
Taylor's appointment, the results of this study, covering five 
consecttive years, will be published as a Memoir of the New York 
Garden, and is expected to appear during 1914. 
Plant Diseases—During the year Dr. Olive has continued his 
studies on two diseases of the potato caused by a parasitic fungus 
(Fusarium), and popularly known respectively as the “ potato 
wilt” and “dry rot.” He is also making a study of a disease of 
the sugar beet, of unknown origin, and causing great damage in 
some of the Western States, amounting in some cases to a loss of 
nine-tenths of the entire crop. The discovery of the nature and 
catise of this disease would point the way to treatment and prophy- 
laxis, and would obviously be of great economic as well as scien- 
tific importance. Dr. Olive’s studies of the wheat rust, and of 
other plant rusts, have also been continued, and partial results of 
these studies were embodied in his paper on “ Intermingling of 
perennial sporophytic and gametophytic generations in Puccinia 
Podophylli, P. obtegens and Uromyces Glycyrrhizae,’ which ap- 
peared in August as No. 6 of the Garden Contributions. 
pan 
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