TA 
Among the interesting and valuable gifts received by the 
Garden during the past year, one of the most prized is that of 
an oil painting of the old Elgin Botanic Garden (Fig. 9). It was 
presented by Miss Rebecca Harvey, a granddaughter of the late 
Dr. David Hosack. The famous old New York garden that it 
depicts was established in 1801 by Dr. Hosack, but unfortunately 
languished after a few years for lack of funds and was given up. 
Numerous interesting books have just reached the Garden 
from Berlin. Among them may be cited a copy of von Martius’ 
‘“Palmetum Orbignianum,” containing the descriptions and fig- 
ures of the palms of Bolivia and Paraguay; Bateman’s “Or- 
chidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala,” the ‘‘ Iconographia Phyco- 
logica Adriatica,”’ by Zanardini, illustrating the algae of the 
Adriatic and the Mediterranean, a complete set of Sturm’s 
“ Deutschlands Flora,’ and a number of other important books 
and separates on the Algae. 
Axxa Murray VAIL. 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENT. 
Mr. A. D. Selby, Botanist to the Agricultural Experiment 
Station at Wooster, Ohio, who has been in residence at the 
Garden since December, has been granted a research scholarship 
of the Garden in accordance with the conditions announced in 
the Journal for February, 1903. 
The Desert Botanical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution 
will be located at Tucson. Mr. Frederick V. Coville and Dr. D. 
T. MacDougal, the Advisory Board of the Laboratory, after a 
trip in January and February through the deserts of Texas, New 
Mexico, Arizona, California, Chihuahua and Sonora, reported in 
favor of locating the laboratory at Tucson, and the Executive 
Committee of the Carnegie Institution has approved the selection. 
The actual site of the building is on the shoulder of a mountain 
two miles west of the city of Tucson. This mountain and the 
adjoining mesas bear a splendid representation of such character- 
istic desert forms as Cereus giganteus, Fouguicra, Opuntia, Echino- 
cactus, Covillea and Parkinsonia. 
