90 



Last year a horticulturist from Washington thought he had 

 re-discovered it at the original locality, and the story was given 

 wide publicity in the newspapers, but it turned out that he mis- 

 took the tan bay, a tree of the same family, for it. This spring, 

 Dr. Edgar T. Wherry, of the U. S. department of agriculture, 

 and Dr. Frank Thone, of the Science Service news bureau, ac- 

 companied by the man who believed that he had re-discovered 

 the plant last year, and Dr. C. C. Harrold, of Macon, who has 

 the Franklinia growing at his home, made a careful search for 

 it along the Altamaha, but without success. 



At the last session of the New York State Legislature an 

 appropriation of $400,000 was made for the equipment of the 

 new Plant Sciences building which is nearing completion. The 

 building is to cost about $1,000,000 exclusive of equipment. 



Measuring star size and plant growth. The interferometer, 

 used in measuring the size of stars has been adapted by Dr. 

 K. W. Meissner, of Frankfort, Germany, to study the growth 

 of plants. With the instrument the growth of plants can actually 

 be seen and watched. For most plants the growth is about one 

 hundred thousanth of an inch a second. With the direct light 

 of a mercury vapor lamp the rate increases greatly, ether fumes 

 caused growth to stop allmost instantly. 



Llewelyn \\'illiams, assistant in wood technology on the 

 staff of the Field Museum, Chicago, and leader of the Peruvian 

 division of the Marshall Field Botanical Expedition to the 

 Amazon, returned the middle of May. He has made collections 

 of woods and other botanical material in the Amazonian forests 

 of Peru, and explored some regions believed never before to have 

 been entered by a white man. Mr. Williams has been in the 

 field about one year. The other division of the expedition, 

 which worked along the Amazon in Brazil under the leadership 

 of Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, acting curator of botany, returned 

 several months ago. (Science) 



Dr. J. Arthur Harris, professor of botany and head of the 

 department of botany in the University of Minnesota since 

 1924, and from 1907 to 1924 botanical investigator at the 

 Station for Experimental Evolution of the Cargenie Institution 

 of Washington, died on April 24. Dr. Harris was in his fiftieth 

 year. (Science) 



