83 
missionaries in remote parts of the world. These collections 
brought to him a great wealth of interesting forms on which new 
species and genera were established and these original materials 
or “types” add much to the value of the Mitten herbarium. A 
list of names of places and countries from the titles of Mitten’s 
published papers illustrated the wide geographic range of his 
studies. 
At about the same time that the Garden purchased the Mitten 
herbarium, the hepatic collections of the late Professor Under- 
wood were also acquired. Professor Underwood was for twenty 
years or more the best-known American student of the Hepaticae 
and he developed a collection that was especially rich in American 
material and in European exsiccatae. 
A substantial beginning has been made in combining the 
Hepaticae of the Mitten and Underwood collections with those 
of the general Botanical Garden and Columbia University 
herbarium. It was suggested that a desirable step in the line 
of progress would be the devotion of one or two glass houses to 
the cultivation of the Hepaticae. That a greenhouse filled with 
living Hepaticae can be made attractive to the general public 
as well as generally interesting and useful to botanists has been 
well demonstrated in the botanical garden at Hamburg. 
A. B. Stour. 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 
Dr. C. L. Shear, of the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, recently spent several days at the Garden before sailing 
for Europe, where he will spend several months in the study of 
fruit diseases. 
Frederick H. Blodgett has resigned the position of acting 
professor of biology and geology in Roanoke College to assume 
the duties of plant pathologist and physiologist at the Texas 
Experiment Station which position was made vacant by the 
death of Dr. R. H. Pond. 
Dr. Arthur Hollick, curator, returned April 16, from a six 
months’ leave of absence granted for the purpose of enabling him 
