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to continue his work upon the flora of Alaska for the United 
States Geological Survey. 
Mr. E. W. Berry, instructor in paleobotany in Johns Hopkins 
University, recently spent several days at the Garden examining 
the fossil plant collections of the coastal plain region. 
A commission of distinguished -scientists at the head of the 
German Museum of Munich, the greatest technical museum in 
Europe, spent the forenoon of April 11 at the Garden inspecting 
the museum collections and conservatories. Among the chief 
members of the commission were Dr. Oscar von Miller, president 
of the museum, Count Podewils-Duernitz, honorary president 
and secretary of the state of Bavaria, Dr. von Borscht, mayor 
of Munich, and Professor von Dyck 
Professor J. C. Arthur and Dr. Frank D. Kern, who are engaged 
in monographing the plant rusts for “North American Flora,” 
recently spent a few days with Professor F. E. Lloyd at the 
Alabama Polytechnic Institute, making it the center of field 
operations in the study of the alternate hosts of certain species 
whose life histories are imperfectly known. 
A series of prizes is to be offered by a member of the Torrey 
Botanical Club for the best popular article on some phase of our 
local flora covering the range prescribed by the Club’s preliminary 
catalogue of 1888. The first prize will be $25.00, the second prize 
$15.00, and for the five next best articles a year’s subscription 
to Torreya. More complete information can be had by addressing 
Mr. Norman Taylor, the editor of Torreya. 
In conservatory range, house no. 4, there are in flower two 
plants of unusual interest. One of these is Medinilla magnifica, 
a native of-the Philippines, where it grows in humid situations 
from sea-level to elevations of five or six thousand feet. Its 
flower clusters are of a beautiful pink, hanging in great profusion 
from the spreading branches. It is a stately relative of the 
modest little meadow beauty, Rhexia virginica, growing in sandy 
swamps in the eastern parts of the United States. The other 
plant referred to is the Honduras Sarsaparilla, Smilax ornata, a 
