REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY 

 IN THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1890. 



By Dr. George Vasey, Honorary Curator. 



The report now presented constitutes my second annual report con- 

 cerning the National Herbarium. 



For want of time a precise statement of the number of species and 

 specimens contained must be deferred for a future report, as the mere 

 counting of the specimens would require the services of one person for 

 about a month; only an estimate, therefore, will be given. 



The National Herbarium consists of two parts, the larger of which 

 has been in the custody of the U. S. Department of Agriculture since 

 1869; the other, established in 1885, now in the custody of the Depart- 

 ment of Fossil Plants of the U. S. National Museum. The Museum 

 employs no assistant curator or laborers in the Herbarium, all the force 

 being provided by the establishments who use the collections. 



A historical account of the collection at the Department of Agriculture 

 was published in 1886,* and of the collection in the National Museum 

 in the previous reports of the Department of Recent Plants in the 

 Museum. 



SAFETY OF THE HERBARIUM. 



The need of fireproof and commodious quarters is becoming year by 

 year more pressing. The portion at the Department of Agriculture is 

 especially in a condition to cause the greatest apprehension. If it were 

 destroyed by fire, it could never be entirely replaced and a large num- 

 ber of type specimens would be lost. The collection of American 

 grasses is the largest in existence and contains the type specimens of 

 nearly all the species of American grasses described during the last 

 fifteen years. It is unnecessary to go into detail concerning the value 

 of the Herbarium, but a resolution passed in general assembly by the 

 American Association for the Ad vancement of Science at its last meeting, 

 calling the attention of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 

 and of the Secretary of Agriculture to the present insecurity of the Her- 

 barium, and expressing an earnest desire that means be taken to prop- 

 erly care for it, shows the feeling of the scientific world in general in 

 regard to the matter. 



* The Botanical Gazette, xi, pp. 153-156. 



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