216 
were losing their leaves a month or more before they ordinarily 
would and herbaceous plants were flowering much less freely 
than is usual. 
In spite of these, for England, extraordinary conditions, Kew 
was fascinatingly attractive, and the great number of different 
plants brought together from all parts of the world is almost 
bewildering, and of surpassing interest. Many of the young 
trees of many kinds, planted in recent years, had made good 
growths since my visit, of two years ago, and tlie living es 
of all kinds had developed and had been increased in 
I took note of many species desirable for cultivation i us; the 
climate conditions are so different, however, that a great many 
species, thriving in southern ar in the open, can only be 
maintained under glass at New 
he cactus collection at Kew jane a number of South 
American species not yet obtained for the Bronx, notably certain 
kinds of Cereus and related genera, and some of these are very 
fine large plants. Several of them came into bloom during my 
visit and a study of their flowers enabled me to satisfactorily 
refer them to the genera in which they properly belong. I asked, 
and was promised, cuttings of some of these cacti, for our own 
collection. The genera Pereskia and Pereskiopsis, in which Dr. 
Rose and I are at present especially interested, are not well rep- 
resented at Kew, and I am sending duplicate plants there in 
exchange for the Cereus cuttings, together with some other cacti. 
Our field work in Cuba has made our collections of plants from 
that island very large and representative, comprising, taken to- 
gether with collections made under other auspices, not fewer 
than 20,000 different specimens. The study of these plants 
seemed to disclose the existence in Cuba of such an unexpectedly 
large number of species new to science that I deemed it very 
desirable to check these results by comparisons of a selection of 
the apparent novelties at the great herbarium at Kew, and to 
prove or disprove the identity of others of which I was uncertain. 
I accomplished this interesting investigation, though not without 
continuous application, for the number of observations required 
was very large. The general result is that our exploration work 
