264 



Mr. George R. Johnstone (A.B., 1913, University of Illinois) 

 has been appointed instructor in botany at the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College. 



Greenheart, the wood which the Isthmian Canal Commission 

 is desirous of securing for use in the construction of docks and 

 similar works in the Panama Canal, because it is said by experts 

 to resist more than any other wood the attacks of marine borers 

 which rapidly destroy piles and other submarine structures, is 

 one of the most valuable of timbers. It is native of tropical South 

 America, and from its bark and fruits is obtained bibirine, which 

 is often used as a febrifuge instead of quinine. The tree is 

 Nectandra Rodiaei of the Lauraceae. The wood is of a dark green 

 color, sap wood and heart wood being so much alike that they 

 can with difficulty be distinguished from each other. The heart 

 wood is one of the most desirable of all timbers, particularly in 

 the shipbuilding industry. Indisputable records show that the 

 best grades surpass iron and steel in lasting qualities in salt 

 water, submerged logs having remained intact for one hundred 

 years. In the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, there are two 

 pieces of planking which illustrate better than anything else this 

 durable quality. They are both from a wreck which was sub- 

 merged eighteen years off the west coast of Scotland. The one 

 specimen — greenheart — is merely slightly pitted on the surface, 

 the body of the wood being perfectly sound and untouched, while 

 the other — teak — is almost entirely eaten away. It is extensively 

 used in shipbuilding for keelsons, beams, engine-bearings, and 

 planking, and it is also used in the general arts, but its excessive 

 weight unfits it for many purposes for which its other properties 

 would render it eminently suitable. {Evening Post, 18 October.) 



Miss Florence A. McCormick, M.S. (Chicago), took up her 

 duties as adjunct professor of agricultural botany at the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska on October first. 



