SECTION C— BOTANY. 



On Tuesday evening, January 17th, 1899, members of the Nat- 

 ural Science Club, of Manchester, met at the residence of Mrs. 

 J. W. Fellows, for the purpose of organizing a botanical section 

 of the Institute of Arts and Sciences. 



Mr. William H. Huse was chosen chairman and Mrs. Alberta 

 A. McLeod secretary of the meeting. After a free discussion it 

 was voted to apply for admission to the Institute as Section C, 

 Botany. The meeting then adjourned to the call of the chairman. 



The need of an association of botanical students in central 

 southern New Hampshire has long been felt, for the flora of the 

 region has been very inadequately represented in the catalogues 

 and manuals hitherto published. Observers from the centres of 

 learning who visit the state have almost without exception con- 

 fined their researches to the mountain districts or along the nar- 

 row strip of seacoast, and they have apparently conceived the 

 idea that the northern boundary of Massachusetts extends not 

 only several miles into the air but also several feet under ground, 

 thus constituting an impassable barrier to the northerly distribu- 

 tion of plants as well as of birds. Yet it is not they who are to 

 blame for the unsatisfactory representation of our local flora — we 

 must take that burden upon ourselves. It is not from the lack 

 of floral wealth that we have suffered but from the lack of local 

 botanists. It is astonishing how the flora of a given region will 

 suddenly expand and bloom with rare and unsuspected treasures, 

 when scrutinized by a few pairs of observant eyes. Soon an in- 

 tellectual springtime is inaugurated and botanists begin to bud on 

 every bush. It is the mission of such an organization as ours 

 to see that these buds are properly developed with a view to the 

 production in due course of time of SDund fruit. 



The botanists connected with Dartmouth College have pub- 

 lished a flora of their district, i. e., an area enclosed by a circle of 

 thirty miles radius, with Hanover as the centre. Half of this 

 area being within the state of Vermont, and the other half chiefly 



