January 16, 19U] 



SCIENCE 



109 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The niDCty-seeond regular meeting of the Bo- 

 tanical Society ivas held at the Powhatan Hotel 

 on Tuesday evening, December 2, 1913, at which 

 a dinner and special program were given in honor 

 of the seventieth birthday of Dr. Edward Lee 

 Greene, the president, Dr. C. L. She^r, presiding. 



Mr. John H. Parker was elected to membership. 



The program was as follows: 

 Personal Experiences: Mk. Frederick V. Coville. 



Mr. Coville related incidents in connection with 

 his first meeting with Dr. Greene at the Madison 

 Botanical Congress in 1893, and expressed a high 

 appreciation of his work, particularly of his 

 ' ' Landmarks of Botanical History. ' ' 

 Berkeley an Days: Mr. V. K. Chestnut. 



Mr. Chestnut spoke of his student days at the 

 University of California and of the inspiration 

 received from Dr. Greene by his botanical stu- 

 dents. 

 Botanical Writings: Professor A. S. Hitchcock. 



Professor Hitchcock recalled at the Interna- 

 tional Botanical Congress in 1893 at Madison an 

 incident as illustrating Dr. Greene's taxonomie 

 methods. One day he showed to a group of in- 

 terested botanists a difference between the two 

 common species of foxtail grass, ChcetocMoa 

 viridis and C. glauca. He pointed out that the 

 blades of the first were straight, while those of the 

 second were twisted into a partial spiral. He 

 stated that the reason why these differences were 

 not given in the books was partly from tradition, 

 it not being considered good form to depart very 

 widely from the system of basing differences on 

 the characters of the flowers or fruit; and partly 

 for the reason that the botanists who wrote the 

 books were not sufficiently famiUar with the grow- 

 ing plants. 



Dr. Greene 's first taxonomie paperi was en- 

 titled ' ' Notes on Certain Silkweeds. ' ' 



Professor Hitchcock stated that the value of Dr. 

 Greene's contributions to botany or his influence 

 upon botanical thought did not rest solely upon 

 the large number of new species he had described, 

 but that he had studied many groups of plants, 

 had revised many genera, discussed relationships 

 and set on their feet, as it were, species and gen- 

 era of early authors that had been relegated to 

 oblivion by those that followed. 

 Beminiscences : Mr. Ivar Tidestrom. 



Mr. Tidestrom stated that Dr. Greene began his 



iBot. Gas., 5: 64, 1880. 



botanical career before the Civil War. In 1862, 

 while a young soldier of nineteen in the army of 

 General Grant, he collected a number of plants 

 from the battlefield of Fort Donelson. This col- 

 lection he sent to his mother, who had them 

 mounted in an album and exhibited at a fair of 

 the Sanitary Commission at Chicago. The collec- 

 tion was sold for .$50 and the money applied for 

 the relief of sick and wounded soldiers. 



Dr. Greene, after all the jealousies and person- 

 alities have disappeared, should be remembered 

 not for the many species he has diagnosed, but for 

 his unchallenged devotion to botany, for the gath- 

 ering of an herbarium of nearly 100,000 specimens, 

 and a library of some 3,600 volumes. 



Mr. Tidestrom then stated that a few botanists 

 knew the plants of their regions better than any 

 one else, but challenged any one to produce a man 

 who oould approach Dr. Greene in the knowledge 

 of plants of the vast empire lying between New 

 York and San Francisco. 



Bochy Mountain Flora: Professor Aven Nelson. 



' ' I count it singularly fortunate that this in- 

 teresting event should have happened to occur 

 during my short stay in Washington. I feel doubly 

 delighted in that I am permitted not only to ex- 

 ress my personal pleasure by my presence but 



so to voice for others, as well as myself, the 

 high regard with which we greet the man whom 

 to-night we delight to honor. 



' ' The third part of a great continent, the in- 

 terior west; the Eocky Mountain region of Amer- 

 ica, brings its greetings of good-will and love to 

 him to whom its floral wealth is an open book. 

 To every working botanist in this vast field the 

 name of our guest is a familiar word. It matters 

 not whether he be devoted to the technical or the 

 applied phases of the subject at some point in his 

 work every botanist finds the taxonomist's serv- 

 ices required. I therefore presume to speak for 

 my colleagues in every experiment station, col- 

 lege and university from Mexico to Manitoba and 

 westward to the sea; and not for my colleagues 

 only but for every amateur who loves the wayside 

 flower for its own sake, as well as for that larger 

 public that loves the woods and fields for their 

 beauty and for their bountiful products. These 

 all send greetings and grateful acknowledgment of 

 the help and pleasure conferred upon them. 



"For more than forty years Dr. Greene has 

 loved the plants of the west with a love born of 

 sympathetic, first-hand companionship. To the 

 seemingly barren saline deserts, the chaparrel-cov- 

 ered hills, the grassy parks, the dense forests and 



