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special interest in plant life are ecology and geographic distri. 
bution; his published papers include over 4o titles. He has 
traveled widely in the United States, and in 1913-14 made an 
Asiatic trip for the purpose of studying at the Dutch Botanical 
Garden at Buitenzorg, Java. Dr. Gleason is married and has 
two children. 
N. L. Brirron, 
Director-in- Chief 
THE USE OF PLANTS IN DECORATIVE DESIGN 
In their desire to be of service to designers and students of 
design, the New York Botanical Garden and the Metropolitan 
Museum have devised a new field for their joint efforts in a 
projected exhibition to be held in Class Room B of the Museum 
from March 15 to April 20. This will display designs in which 
plant motives are used, selected from the Museum collections, 
and living plants themselves, provided by the Botanical Garden. 
Plant life has been a source of inspiration to designers since 
prehistoric times. A few typical plants have been used through- 
out the whole history of design. This fact the exhibition will 
take into account and will group about those chief motives 
examples of design dating from different periods and in various 
materials. 
The exhibition will not, however, be exclusively historical but 
will include a group of plants not yet used to any appreciable 
extent as decorative motives but admirably adapted to design. 
Our native flora, in fact, offers to the modern designer, who 
often has followed the traditions of the European schools, an 
almost unexplored but invitingly attractive field. 
