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1900 | NEWS 151 
AN INTERNATIONAL congress of botanists is to be held at Paris from the 
first to the tenth of October 1900, in connection with the exposition. The 
committee of organization solicits the support of botanists of all countries and 
desires to have communicated, as promptly as possible, a precise statement 
of the general questions which they desire to have brought before the con- 
gress. It is necessary in order to make the discussions of the greatest profit 
in the limited time that the questions should be studied carefully before 
hand. Some topics which have been proposed already and have been 
approved by the committee are these : (1) monographic studies ; (2) species, 
hybrids and cross-breeds; (3) unification of micrometric measures ; (4) influ- 
ence of the nature of the substratum on the development of fungi. The 
president of the committee is M. le Sénateur E. Prillieux ; the vice presi- 
dents, MM. Dutailly, Mussat, and Rouy; the general secretary, M. E. Per- 
rot, l’Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie, Paris ; the secretaries, MM. Guérin 
and Lutz; the members, MM. Bescherelle, Bonnier, Bornet, Bourquelot, 
Bureau, Camus, Chatin, Cornu, Drake del Castillo, Franchet, Guignard, Hua, 
Malinvaud, Patouillard, Roze, J. de Seynes, Van Tieghem, and Zeiller. 
All botanists who notify the general secretary of their desire to become 
members of the congress and pay the fee (20 francs) are eligible. The fees 
are to be used to defray the cost of publishing the proceedings. 
Public and general sessions, conferences and collecting trips, displays 
of fungi, and visits to botanical establishments are planned. Only members 
of the congress and delegates of French or foreign governmental depart- 
ments will be admitted to other than the public sessions. Papers to be 
read must be sent (in full or in abstract) to the secretary before September 
15. Speakers will be restricted to thirty minutes, and may not speak more 
than twice on the same question. The official language will be French. 
FROM ADVANCE sheets of the eleventh annual report of the director of the 
Missouri Botanical Garden submitted to the trustees January 10, 1900, we 
select the following items: 
The decorative features of the garden have been maintained as in previous 
years, In the spring a very small synoptical collection, representative of the 
principal natural orders of flowering plants, was installed in the central part 
of the garden, where it is proposed to continue it as a convenient means of 
enabling teachers in the public schools to demonstrate to their pupils the 
characters of the larger plant groups. The collection embraces 318 species, 
pertaining to as many genera, and representing 100 orders. ...-> The total 
number of species and varieties now in cultivation is 9127, a net gain of 1118. 
1840 plants were presented to schools and charities. . . - - A definite count 
of visitors showed a total of 71,021 for 1899. --- - The herbarium has 
received the most important current collections, particularly those representa- 
tive of the North American flora, In addition to some 5700 specimens, 
