NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENTS. 

 Professor J. C. Arthur and Mr. F. D. Kern, both of Purdue 

 University, Lafayette, Indiana, held research scholarships at the 

 Garden for the month of January. Their attention was entirely 

 devoted to the large collection of plant rusts in the cryptogamic 

 herbarium. 



in exchange for North American plants, has just arrived from 

 Akita, Japan. The collection, containing two or three hun- 

 dred Sj 



of 7,000 ft. 



Mr. H. H. York, a graduate of De Pauw University, for some 

 time Fellow and Assistant at the Ohio State University, from 

 which institution he also holds the degree of Master of Arts, and 

 now a Fellow in Botany at Columbia University, took up syste- 

 matic work at the Garden last fall with a view of monographing 

 the North American plants of the Mallow Family. This fam- 

 ily is a very homogeneous one, and both genera and species are 

 rather poorly differentiated, which in itself renders the work of 

 the monographer very difficult ; but his difficulties are increased 

 owing to the fact that the family attains its best development in 

 Mexico and Central America and herbarium material from these 

 regions is as yet comparatively meager. 



Mr. Henry Allan Gleason, graduate student in botany in 

 Columbia University, is among those who are engaged in research 

 work this year in the herbarium, library, and laboratories of the 

 garden. Mr. Gleason received the degree of B.S. from the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois in 1 90 1 and that of M.A. from the same insti- 

 tution in 1904. In the University of Illinois, also, he occupied 

 the position of curator of the herbarium from 1900 to 1904, 

 serving in addition as assistant in the teaching work from 1 901 

 to 1902 and as instructor in botany for the year 1 903-04. 

 During the college -year i904-'o5, he held a fellowship in 

 botany in the Ohio State University, the previous summer having 

 been spent as a special assistant at the Missouri Botanical Gar- 

 den. Mr. Gleason has devoted several summers to floristic and 



