1896] : NEWS 79 
Museum. The accompanying cut will give some idea of the external appear- 
ance of the building, which will be ready for use in the spring of 1897. 
THE RECENT TORNADO at St. Louis was so destructive that much anxiety 
was felt by botanists as to the fate of the Missouri Botanical Garden. In the 
absence of Dr. Trelease, Mr. C. H. Thompson, Acting Director, has furnished 
the following statement for the readers of the GAZETTE: 
“The Garden was in the direct path of the storm, at the very beginning 
of the territory destroyed, and received less injuries than the region east of 
us. However, the damage done in the Garden is very considerable, the most 
of it being in the arboretum, where something like 160 trees were either 
uprooted or broken off near the ground, so that they had to be taken out. 
These, of course, were total losses. Something over 250 were very badly 
damaged. In many Cases the tops of the trees were almost entirely carried 
away. Many of these, by judicious pruning, will in a few years grow 
to be beautiful trees again, while many are so badly broken that it is 
probable that they will die. The shrubbery was badly whipped and 
broken, but fared better than the trees. The bed plants were almost totally 
destroyed in the exposed parts of the grounds. However, these are now 
replaced. The wreckage from the trees is rapidly being gathered up, and 
the Garden promises by another month to be as beautiful as ever, with only 
the vacant places here and there to remind us of the ravages of the storm. 
Buildings suffered somewhat. The Linnean house, which shelters the 
palms in the winter season, had the glass portion of the roof entirely 
_ demolished. The office building had the tin roof torn from the south wing, 
and other buildings escaped with slight damages. At the office building, 
where the library and herbarium are kept, no damage whatever was done to 
the contents of the building. No permanent damage was done to the Gar- 
den, and most of it can be repaired in a short time.” 
PROFEssoR E, L. GREENE, in the continuation of his “studies in 
Composite” (Pittonia 3: 43), presents further conclusions in regard to the 
“asteraceous" forms, Generic lines in this vicinity either were or are in a 
and possibly ever will be. Apparently species may belong to 
any one of several genera dependent upon the standpoint of the observer. 
In the present paper the genera Oonopsis (a new genus), Xylorrhiza, 
Heleastrum, Dellingeria, Eucephalus, and Macheranthera are present 
synoptically, Aster and Applopapus being the most frequent synonyms. 
Dr. Joun K, SMALL, in Bud/. Torr. Bot. Club (May), has taken Rai- 
mann’s work on CEnothera, as presented in Engler and Prantl’s Natirlichen. 
oF ‘flanzenfamilien, and applied it toa study of North American materials. The 
Composite character of this Linnzan genus was notably pointed out by Spach 
