MISSOURI BOTANIC GARDEN REPORT. 283 



The Director's Report shows that good work is being done in 

 the Herbarium. Besides purchases of published sets, Mr. Hitch- 

 cock's West Indian collections, amounting to about 2000 specimens, 

 have been added to the collections. The Engelmann and Bern- 

 hardi herbaria (containing respectively about 98,000 and 57,500 

 specimens) have been mounted and arranged ; and Prof. Trelease 

 has presented his private herbarium, containing about 11,000 

 specimens, chiefly of fungi, to the Garden. 



The Eeport also contains a "Flower Sermon" by the Rev. 

 Montgomery Schuyler, which seems to us rather dear at 200 dollars, 

 although it contains some remarkable passages. When Charles 

 Kingsley visited Mr. Shaw at the Garden in 1874, they became 

 great friends, and "the Canon showed himself as familiar with the 

 botanical names [of the exotics] as if they were the members of 

 his own family." Their intercourse was " a mutual delight," and 

 Kingsley " warmly expressed his intention, upon his return to 

 England, of securing in [Mr. Shaw's] behalf the honor of an 

 appointment as a Fellow of the Koyal Society." Unfortunately, he 

 died before he could "carry out his generous purpose." After the 

 sermon came a "banquet" for "the Trustees and their guests," 

 and some months later there was another for "gardeners, florists, 

 and nurserymen"; and the speeches at these festive gatherings are 

 printed in extenso ! "Where can we find another such a man, 

 with such a history, who has done so much for any city, aye, so 

 much for any country, as Henry Shaw has done?" asked the Hon. 

 Norman J. Colman : "what other city, what other state, what 

 other nation has had a Henry Shaw, leaving so munificent a 

 donation, leaving such a grand work for humanity ? " Mr. Shaw, 

 who is described as having been " modest" and "unassuming," and 

 who was moreover an Englishman, would, we imagine, have felt 

 somewhat uncomfortable under the hon. gentleman's eloquence. 



The Hon. Charles E. Hay made a speech about Orchids. 

 " Enthusiasts have said," he observed, "that there is a degree of 

 intelligence in an orchid kindred to the intelligence that is in man. 

 That as man is the noblest of the animal creation, endowed with 

 the faculty of looking his Creator in the face, and having an intellect 

 to express his thoughts, the orchid, being the last created specimen 

 of the floral kingdom, has some of those attributes. I do not say 

 so myself, I am not so much of a crank as that, but there is some- 

 thing in the modern orchid corresponding to man. There are no 

 traces of orchids found in the clay formations. No geologists claim 

 that they have found anywhere traces of them. They have found 



flowers, but no orchids I know of no flower in bloom that, 



to use the English expression of a French friend, is so thoroughly 

 fetching as the well grown orchid. I do not know of any flower 

 that I would rather devote myself entirely to than the orchid, and, 

 for the reason, as Mr. Trelease has so well said, that I am abso- 

 lutely fond of them. It does seem to me that when I am in the 

 presence of an orchid I am in the presence of a plant that, as the 

 old Irishman said, 'has sense." 1 One wonders how an orchid 

 would feel in the presence of the Hon. Charles E. Hay. 



