February 15, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



259 



to strive with each other. But the final 

 outcome will be that the president of the 

 university will be the executive representa- 

 tive or spokesman, not the ruler of the 

 faculty, and the department head will 

 stand in similar relations to his fellows. 

 Meanwhile the title is an academic honor, 

 the salary a practical means to an end, 

 and so long as our universities are in 

 process of formation, the two will not bear 

 any automatic or static relation to each 

 other. 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE . 

 MEETING OF SECTION G (BOTANY) 



Section G held, three independent ses- 

 sions for reading of papers, December 28 

 and 31, 1906, in the rooms of the botanical 

 department, Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia 

 University. The attendance ranged from 

 about thirty at the last session, when the 

 Botanical Society was holding a simultane- 

 ous meeting, to about one hundred and 

 twenty-five. On December 28 a joint ses- 

 sion with Section F (Zoology) was held at 

 Teachers College, at which over three hun- 

 dred persons were present. Owing to the 

 absence, on account of illness, of the re- 

 tiring vice-president. Dr. Erwin F. Smith, 

 the hour assigned for his address was used 

 for other papers. 



During the past year there has been ef- 

 fected a union of three affiliated societies, 

 viz., the Botanical Society of America, the 

 American Mycological Society and the So- 

 ciety for Plant Morphology and Physiol- 

 ogy, the combination bearing the name of 

 the oldest and first mentioned of the three. 

 This has simplified somewhat the relations 

 of other botanical interests with Section G. 

 The new Botanical Society held two ses- 

 sions in which members of the section were 

 largely present, the attendance then being 

 over one hundred; one of these sessions 

 was held at the New York Botanical Gar- 



den, Bronx Park, after which all the visit- 

 ing botanists were entertained at luncheon 

 by the garden. The society held two ses- 

 sions on December 31, simultaneously with 

 Section G. 



Forty titles were submitted for the pro- 

 gram of Section G, from which about thirty 

 papers were actually presented. The first 

 six of the following were read before the 

 joint session with Section F. 



Elementary Species and Ryhrids of Bursa: 

 George H. Shull, Station for Experi- 

 mental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, 

 New York. (To be published in Sci- 

 ence. ) 



Mendel's Law as a Tracer of Lost Parents 

 — 7. The American Carnation: J. B. 

 Norton, U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture. 



In this paper it will be shown that the 

 common greenhouse carnation is a hybrid 

 type whose two parents are a single form 

 and a very double form. These parental 

 types have been extracted by ordinary 

 breeding methods and reeombined to pro- 

 duce a uniform hybrid first generation 

 agreeing with the standard commercial 

 types. This is the first experiment, so far 

 as the author knows, that shows a com- 

 mercial application of Mendel's law of 

 heredity. 



Preliminary Note on Pollen Development 

 in CEnothera lata De Tries and its Hy- 

 brids: R. R. Gates, University of Chi- 

 cago. 



CEnothera lata is one of the mutants 

 which does not mature its pollen, and hence 

 must be pollinated from another species, 

 producing a hybrid in the next generation. 

 The plants studied were from a cross be- 

 tween 0. lata and 0. Lamarckiana, which 

 is a Mendelian hybrid, showing in the next 

 generation, according to De Vries, an aver- 



