44 



up to 1 8 inches diameter arranged in strips according with the 

 direction of the wind, though occasionally in bands or even in 

 patches 8 by lo feet. The patches are near the large islands." 

 Mr. Stevenson feels that "At best, the quantity of weed seen 

 at any locality is wholly insignificant. Midway in the sargasso 

 sea, the bunches seen in a width of a mile would form, if brought 

 into contact, a strip not more than 65 feet wide. This, where 

 the weed is most abundant. But the bunches are very loose, 

 the plant material, as was estimated, occupying less than one 

 fifth of the space, so that if the bunches were brought together so 

 that the plant parts would be in contact, each square mile would 

 yield a strip not more than 13 feet wide and 3 or 4 inches thick, 

 orbarely 2,500 cubic yards to the square mile. . . . The accumula- 

 tion of decayed vegetable material from seaweeds must be com- 

 paratively unimportant under the sargasso sea; and what there 

 is would be merely foreign matter in mineral deposits." 



J. B. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB 



November 30, 1910 



This meeting was held at the New York Botanical Garden. 

 Nineteen persons were present. Vice-president Barnhart occu- 

 pied the chair. 



The minutes of the meeting of November 8 were read and 

 approved. Dr. W. D. Hoyt, of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, 

 N. J., was proposed for membership. 



The first paper of the announced scientific program was by 

 Dr. N. L. Britton on the "Flora of Pinar del Rio, Cuba." Dr. 

 Britton gave an account of his recent botanical explorations in 

 this province of Cuba in company with Mrs. Britton, Professor 

 F. S. Earle, and Professor C. Stuart Gager. After a sketch of 

 the earlier botanical explorations of Cuba by Charles Wright 

 and others, the general floral features of the province of Pinar 

 del Rio were described and many specimens were exhibited. An 

 account of this work is published in the Journal of the New York 

 Botanical Garden for October. 



