third lake, occupied by wild water plants of the region, outflows into 

 the Bronx River. 



The Museum Building. — This is the largest edifice in the world 

 devoted to botany and kindred subjects. It has a frontage of 312 feet. 

 The architectural style is Italian Renaissance. Its approach from the 

 main driveway to the south includes garden fountains surrounded by 

 marble seats, four parallel rows of tulip trees, and a fine bronze foun- 

 tain immediately in front of the building. 



The main floor is given to the museum of economic botany, in which 

 have been brought together crude and refined products of plants used 

 in the arts, sciences and industries, including foods, drugs, fibers, gums, 

 resins, oils, sugars, starches, cork, paper and a great variety of others. 

 This collection now contains about 8,000 specimens, and is constantly 

 referred to for information relative to commercial products. 



The second floor contains the museum of systematic botany, illus- 

 trated by specimens, drawings, paintings and photographs of types of 

 all the families of plants, commencing with those of the simplest struc- 

 ture and ending with the most complex. This floor also contains, 

 mounted in swinging frames, specimens illustrating all the kinds of 

 plants growing naturally within 100 miles of New York City, and a 

 series of 20 microscopes demonstrate some of the minute plants. 



The third floor of the Museum Building contains the library, now 

 including over 25,000 volumes on botany, horticulture and related 

 sciences, and is one of the most complete collections of books on these 

 subjects in the United States, and therefore is consulted by students 

 from all over the country. Laboratories are provided for advanced and 

 special students from colleges and universities who come to take advant- 

 age of the facilities offered by the library and collections. The herbarium, 

 consisting of dried specimens of plants from all parts of the world, is 

 the largest in the United States. 



The basement floor of the Museum Building contains the collections 

 of fossil plants, which are very extensive, and a large lecture hall, store- 

 rooms and workrooms. 



Educational and Scientific Work. — The collections of living 

 plants in the grounds and greenhouses, some 13,000 different kinds being 

 now represented, and the collections in the Museum Building, are labeled 

 for public information, over 25,000 such labels being now in place. 

 Free public lectures are delivered in the Museum Lecture Hall every 

 Saturday afternoon from early Spring until late Autumn, on botanical 

 and horticultural topics. Assistants guide visitors who apply for informa- 

 tion to all parts of the grounds and buildings. Children from the public 

 schools and other schools are received in groups and given lectures and 



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