60 



years of age. He had been decorated with the iron cross for his 

 bravery. 



From the same source we quote the following: "The botanists 

 in military uniform do not neglect their scientific interests even 

 in the trenches. Every chance to get into the open is devoted 

 to the collecting and pressing of plants, and the " war herbarium" 

 is an adjunct of many a military camp. Dr. Schottky, the son of 

 the Berlin mathematician, Professor Schottky, writes from the 

 battlefield of Arras that he found in a well rare ferns and moss. 

 Among other prominent botanists in the field are Count von 

 Schwerin, head of the Dendrological Society of Berlin, who is 

 attached to the General Staff; Dr. Baupel, of the BerHn Botanical 

 Museum, who as a lieutenant is drilling recruits; Prof. Erwin 

 Baur, who was to have lectured in Batavia on his special subject, 

 " The Progress of the Theory of Heredity as Applied to the 

 Cultivation of Tropical Plants," and who had been designated to 

 go to the University of Wisconsin as exchange professor ; and the 

 Curator of the Botanical Museum, Professor Mildbraed, whose 

 whereabouts are unknown. Man\^ equally famous German 

 botanists are in the East, some of them as prisoners of war in 

 Japan." 



Professor Volney Rattan, author in 1879 of "A Popular 

 California Flora," which subsequently ran through many edi- 

 tions, died in Berkeley, California, March 5, 191 5. He had given 

 his life to the teaching of botany in the California normal and 

 high schools. His discussion of the peculiar germination of 

 Echinocystis californica attracted the attention of Charles 

 Darwin, who makes note of it in " The Power of Movement in 

 Plants." 



According to the Sim the orchid collection of the late Joseph 

 Chamberlin is to be sold at auction during April in London. 

 For many years it was one of the finest private collections of 

 orchids in the world. 



Dr. J. C. Bose, of Presidency College, Calcutta, who has been 

 lecturing in the United States on physiological botany, sailed 

 from San Francisco on March 20. 



