NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 



Professor William Trelease, director of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden, left St. Louis on January 24 for an expedition to the 

 West Indies. 



Mr. John F. Cowell, director of the botanical garden at Buffalo, 

 paid the Garden a visit early in March to examine the living col- 

 lections of tropical and desert plants. 



Dr. John A. Shafer, Museum Custodian, returned on the first 

 of March from a collecting trip of several weeks duration in the 

 island of Montserrat, West Indies. 



Bulletin No. 17, containing the annual reports of the Director- 

 in-Chief and his associates for the year 1906, appeared March ;, 

 1907. 



Mr. W. T. Home, who spent considerable time at the Garden 

 in 1903-04 while holding the fellowship in botany in Columbia 

 University, has been appointed head of the department of plant 

 pathology in the Estaci6n Central Agronomica de Cuba, a posi- 

 tion recently held by Dr. M. T. Cook. 



Volume 7, part 1, of the North American Flora, contributed 

 by Professor J. C. Arthur, of Purdue University, Lafayette, Indi- 

 ana, appeared March 6, 1907. This part is devoted to two fami- 

 lies and a portion of a third in the large and important group of 



The total precipitation recorded for the month of February 

 was 2. 19 inches, of which there were 1 1 inches of snowfall on the 

 5th, 1 inch on the 6th, and 6 inches on the 25th, making a total 

 of 18 inches of snowfall for the month. Maximum temperatures 

 were recorded of 47 on the 2d, 48 on the 10th and 14th, and 

 37° on the 20th ; also minimum temperatures of — 2° on the 6th, 

 i° on the 13th, 3" on the 23d, and 2° on the 27th. 



