14 



Meeting of October 31, 1923 



The meeting was held at the Museum of The New York 

 Botanical Garden. 



In the matter of an invitation to send a delegate to the 

 Joseph Leidy Commemorative Meeting to be held in Philadel- 

 phia on December 6, it was agreed to leave the selection of 1 

 delegate to the Secretary. 



Letters from various European institutions asking for dona- 

 tions of the Club's publications or proposing exchanges therefor 

 were read and it was voted to refer the matter to a special com- 

 mittee to be appointed by the Chairman. 



Mrs. Wheeler H. Peckham, New Rochelle, N. Y., was elected 

 to membership. 



The scientific program consisted of a discussion by Dr. N. L. 

 Britton and Mr. William Beebe of "Plants of the Galapagos 

 Islands," collected on the Williams Expedition of the N. Y. 

 Zoological Society. 



Dr. Britton, introducing the subject, alluded to the isolation 

 of Galapagos Islands, lying in the Pacific Ocean near the Equa- 

 tor, about 650 miles west of Ecuador and 900 miles southwest of 

 Panama. He referred to Charles Darwin's visit in 1835 as 

 naturalist of the voyage of The Beagle, and to the impetus given 

 to the evolutionary theory by Darwin's observation that tortoises 

 from the different islands showed characteristic differences. 

 There is considerable literature on the flora of these islands, the 

 most comprehensive paper being Dr. Alban Stewart's "A Botan- 

 ical Survey of the Galapagos Islands," published in 191 1, and 

 listing 615 species and varieties of spermatophytes and pterido- 

 phytes. Dr. Stewart spent more than ayear in the archipelago in 

 i905-'o6. Darwin thought that 50% of the plants and animals 

 were endemic. Increasing knowledge has reduced the pro- 

 portion of endemic species to about 40%. There have been 

 two theories as to the origin of the fauna and flora of the Gala- 

 pagos. One assumes the existence of an ancient bridge of land 

 connecting the islands with the continent; the other assumes 

 that the islands were always islands and that seeds and plants 

 have been brought there by birds, winds and waves, etc. Some 

 of the endemic species of plants show many races or varieties. 



One of the most common grasses in the collection is Eragrostis 



