NEWS NOTES 



Dr. William J. Robbins, dean of the Graduate School of the 

 University of Missouri has been appointed Director of The New 

 York Botanical Garden. Some of his outstanding work has been 

 with the isoelectric point of plant tissues, with growth of e.xer- 

 cised root tips and with plant auxins. The General Botany of 

 which he is co-author, is one of our best balanced and generally 

 useful botany te.xts. An able and energetic plant physiologist, 

 he brings to the Botanical Garden a broad outlook on modern 

 developments in the botany of living plants. 



There has recently been established the Organ Pipe Cactus 

 National Monument in Arizona. The cacti for which the park 

 was named form its chief attraction. These cacti are large, grow- 

 ing in erect clumps, branching only from the base, and suggest- 

 ing in form the pipes of an organ. The Indians of the Papago 

 Reservation visit the region to gather the fruit which ripen 

 in late June. 



Mr. John E. Lager, collector and commercial grower of 

 orchids, died at his home in Summit, N.J., on October 30, in 

 his seventy sixth year. Born in Sweden he worked in botanical 

 gardens in London and Paris before coming to this country. 

 He made several trips to South America to hunt orchids in the 

 mountains and brought back some forms never before collected. 



As was noted in our issue of January-February, the Natural 

 Science Museum at Syracuse University was partly destroyed 

 by fire last January. The museum is now being rebuilt and will 

 probably be completed by the 1st of February. Dr. Ernest D. 

 Reed, leader of two South American expeditions, is at the head 

 of the museum board, and is directing the work. 



On November 23 Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose died in Calcutta, 

 India. Dr. Bose at the time of his death was director of the Bose 

 Research Institute in Calcutta which he established in 1915. 

 The work for which he was best known had to do with responses 

 of plants to stimuli, such as bad air, touch, poisons, drugs, in 



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