









r* 





) 



I 



1917I BRIEFER ARTICLES 151 



land in January to study Welwitschia and get material for further investi- 

 gation. In the same letter he writes: "I don't think there is the least 

 chance for peace before September, 191 7. I wish I could get away from 

 I present occupations and take a part, but I am not encouraged by the 



authorities. " 



Five years ago, while studying cycads in South Africa, it was my 

 good fortune to become acquainted with Professor Pearson, and to be 

 entertained in his home. He was a vigorous, kindly man, intensely 

 interested in his work and enthusiastic over the botanical possibilities 



of South Africa. 



Mountain 



me a magnificent site for a botanical garden, at that time only a dream 

 or a vision; but with him a vision was followed by meditation, and then 

 by determined effort to make his dream come true. The visions which 

 he saw during such strolls have materialized in the National Botanic 

 I Gardens at Cape Town, with an unsurpassed location, and with such a 



J rapidly growing collection of plants that the place is already one of the 



great gardens of the world. 

 ! By his untimely death — he was only 46 years old— science has lost a 



great botanist, but it is to be hoped that his high ideals of scientific work 

 will still remain to guide the botanical policies of South Africa. — 



J. Chamberlain, University of 



SOIL MOISTURE INDEX 



Outdoor botanists in thinking of any plant are likely to associate 

 with it some measure of its soil moisture relation. The terms xerophy te, 

 mesophyte, and hydrophyte naturally come to mind, or at least the con- 



that 



With college students, however, 



no such association of ideas is likely to occur unless special attention is 

 directed to the subject. This may be done by requiring the student to 

 examine the habitat, note the associated species, and estimate the water 

 requirements. Such a plan was tried the past summer at the Uni- 



Mountain 



For 



this purpose a scale, which may be called a "soil moisture index/' proved 

 useful. A rule of the laboratory required that every plant studied should 

 be recorded with an index number, this to be criticized and perhaps 

 altered by the instructor. 



The index numbers form a scale from 1 to 10 with the following 

 significance: (1) lithophytes; (2) plants of driest, sterile soil; (3) hyper- 

 xerophytes; (4) xerophytes; (5) xero-mesophytes; (6) mesophytes; 



