PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB 

 Meeting of October 19, 1938 



The meeting held at The New York Botanical Garden was 

 called to order by President Gunderson at 3:40 p.m. with 38 

 persons present. 



The minutes were read and approved. 



Dr. Gunderson stated that he had received a letter from 

 Dr. John A. Small in response to his request that Dr. Small 

 accept the appointment of Chairman of the Field Committee. 

 Dr. Small thought the appointment should not be a hasty one. 



Dr. Moldenke announced that Mr. Frank Place and Dr. 

 William S. Thomas are acting as a committee to receive volun- 

 tary contributions for the Torrey Fund, the interest of which 

 is to be used yearly. 



The memorial service and unveiling of a monument erected 

 in memory of Mr. Torrey, whose ashes are to be scattered by 

 Mr. Frank Place on top of Long Mountain, will take place 

 Sunday October 30 at 10 a.m. 



The scientific program consisted of a report on the research 

 work done by Mr. James W. Marvin on the Shape of the Pith 

 Cells of Eiipatorium piirpureum and some related phenomena. 

 The following is an abstract by the speaker : 



"The shape of undifferentiated cells as they occur aggregated 

 into tissues has for a long time been interpretated as largely a 

 surface tension phenomenon. The Orthic Tetrakaidecahedron 

 of Lord Kelvin with eight hexagonal and six square faces is 

 considered by some to be the fundamental shape for undiffer- 

 entiated cells. 



In an experiment in which lead shot of equal size were com- 

 pressed at various pressures, an increase in the number of con- 

 tacts from slightly more than eight to about fourteen occurred; 

 this shows that, in a system where surface tension plays a rela- 

 tively small part, compression to the point where all of the 

 spaces between the spheres are eliminated gives approximately 

 fourteen contacts or faces per shot. However these shot had a 

 relatively large number of pentagonal faces and were not orthic 

 tetrakaidecahedra. 



Pith cells of Eupatorium purpureum were examined also and 

 three dimensional models of the cells were constructed. A study 



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