288 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ocroser 
view of introducing new agricultural industries into America. The journey 
was under the direction of the Section of Plant and Seed Introduction of the 
own southwestern states. Incidentally he noted many points of great biolog- 
ical interest. The caprification of the fig is still practiced as described 
Aristotle more than two thousand years ago, and a careful study of the com 
mensalism and symbiosis of the fig plant and Blastophaga is by no means 
superfluous, but on the contrary very much needed, since all previous students 
have studied it at the same time of the year, and many doubtful points remain 
to be cleared up. Mr. Swingle is going to California very shortly to study 
the fig industry of our own Pacific coast. | 
Proressor W. A. SETCHELL, Dr. W. L. Jepson, Mr. L. E. Hunt, and 
Mr. A. A. Lawson, of the University of California, have returned to Berkeley 
from a botanical expedition to Unalaska. Dr. Jepson studied the flowering 
plants, Professor Setchell and Mr. Lawson the flowerless : 
Hunt, who is in the Civil Engineering Department, determined altitu 
took the photographs of plant communities, etc. The party remained gt 
laska for eight weeks and carried out its work as planned, collecting 
oughly in the neighborhood of Unalaska bay, making extensive field 
and securing a fairly full collection of photographs. Professor Setchell 
Unalaska for about three weeks, on a trip to St. Michael and Cape 
collecting plants of all kinds and making notes as to points of 
and ecology. Returning, the party went from Unalaska to Sitka! 
coast, collecting at Unga, Karluk, Kodiak, Orca, Juneau, and 
were thus able to trace many plants of the shores along a conside 
of the Alaska coast, and to note the changes in habit and the @ 
altitudinal distribution. There is a very considerable amoun 
accumulated and it will not be known until it is carefully ba 
much of it is new, or just to what extent it will throw light 0 ‘ 
tribution. The collections of marine algz, taken in connection 
collections made in Alaska, Washington, California, and ‘Mexi 
last four or five years, it is hoped, will indicate the limits of the 
floras of the Pacific coast of North America when they ar 
mined and tabulated, and will afford the basis for some exact I 
causes of demarcation.—Sczence, Oct. 13, 1899- 
