16 



and in a pond near Denver, Colorado. Some peculiarities in 

 the pistillate flowers were also pointed out." 



Adjournment followed. B. O. Dodge, 



Secretary. 



NEWS ITEMS 



At a dinner for botanists given by the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden during the St. Louis meeting two rather unusual vege- 

 tables were served. Dasheen en cassorole and Arracacha. The 

 latter is a Venezuelan plant, Arracacia xanthorrhiza, introduced 

 through the Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction Office at 

 Washington, and said to be the first grown in the United States 

 and served at a public banquet. The dasheen is Colocasia esculeuta, 

 a more familiar plant, grown commercially from South Carolina 

 to Florida and Texas, but not yet widely known near New York. 



The Ecological Society of America elected the following 

 officers at the Christmas meetings. President, Barrington 

 Moore; Vice-President, G. E. Nichols; and Secretary-Treasurer , 

 A. O. Weese. The president was reelected and, after a several 

 month's trip to the Southwest and California, will be at 925 

 Park Avenue, N. Y. after March 27. 



Dr. R. M. Harper, after a short visit to New York, has re- 

 turned to Alabama. His address until further notice will be 

 University, Ala. 



Dr. B. E. Livingston, of Johns Hopkins University, has been 

 appointed Permanent Secretary of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science. He will retain his position at 

 the University and spend one or two days a week at Washington. 



Mr. Robert Cushman Murphy has just returned from the 

 islands off the coast of Peru. While most of his material is 

 zoological he collected all the flowering plants known from the 

 islands. Some are absolute deserts, a few with only lichens and 

 mosses, others with as many as 15 flowering plants. One island 

 contains a fringe of a single beach species along the coast, then 

 for 1000 feet in elevation nothing but bare rock and soil, and 

 finally a single specimen of an Acacia-like tree, not over 3 feet 

 high. The specimens from these unique islands have been 

 presented to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 



