58 
In the Pereskioideae is the genus Pereskia, the best known of 
which is commonly called Barbados gooseberry. To botanists 
it is known as Pereskia Pereskia. Pereskia Bleo, and P. cubensis, 
from Cuba, are other species. 
GEORGE V. NAsH. 
CONFERENCE NOTES. 
The March conference of the scientific staff and registered 
students of the New York Botanical Garden was held in the 
secgeel of the museum building, Monday, March 4, at 4:00 
. B. Robinson gave an interesting account of Phil- 
ippine Botanical Explorations of which the following isasummary: 
Camel, the earliest of all botanical explorers in the Philippines, 
appears to have visited a greater number of the islands than any 
of his successors, and that about the end of the seventeenth 
century. Many subsequent expeditions stopped there, but con- 
fined their investigations to few localities. Cuming, however, 
covered much ground, and his work has been of especial value 
through the large series of duplicates obtained, now distributed 
in nearly all the large herbaria of the world 
In general, the Spanish botanists explored a very limited area, 
the country around Manila, and for about 20 miles to the north 
and northeast. At the end of their regime, under Sebastian 
Vidal, specimens were obtained from many additional parts of 
the Islands. 
Since 1902, nearly all the larger islands have been explored to 
a greater or less extent, especially by certain members of the 
staff of the Forestry Bureau, notably H. M. Curran, H. N 
Whitford, M. L. Merritt, W. I. Hutchinson, R. Meyer, T. E. 
Borden, P. T. Barnes, and R. Rosenbluth; by the botanists of 
the Bureau of Science, E. D. Merrill, F. W. Foxworthy, and C. B. 
Robinson, two of their assistants, Maximo Ramos and E. Fénix, 
and the ornithologist, R. C. McGregor; by the Bureau of Govern- 
ment Laboratories, predecessor of the Bureau of Science, which 
adds the names of E. B. Copeland and A.D.E.Elmer. The last 
of these has made extensive explorations in recent years as a 
