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THE LABORATORIES 



Laboratories and working rooms for research are provided 

 on the upper floor of the museum building, and properly 

 qualified students of botany are permitted to make use of this 

 equipment, under the direction of some member of the staff 

 of the Garden. The equipment is designed to meet the needs 

 of a very broad field of investigation including plant chem- 

 istry, pathology, physiology and morphology. A valuable 

 series of old microscopes, illustrating the history and develop- 

 ment of that instrument, has been presented by Mr. Charles 



F. Cox. 



3. The Pinetum 



[Collection of cone-bearing trees] 

 The collection of cone-bearing trees, technically known as 

 the Pinetum, because the pines are the most abundant of 

 these trees, is planted over a space of about 30 acres in the 

 southwestern part of the grounds, extending from the approach 

 to the elevated railway station southeast to the herbaceous 

 garden, and northeast to the museum building and the bord- 

 ers of the hemlock forest. The species of trees are grouped 

 in genera, as shown by the accompanying plan. The plant- 

 ing out of these trees was commenced in 1901, and, as rapidly 

 as the finished grades of this portion of the grounds have 

 been established and the driveways and paths completed, 

 additional planting has been done ; the collection will con- 

 tinually become more complete year by year as additional 

 species are secured ; many of these have to be raised from 

 seed, and the process of establishing a collection of conifers 

 thus requires much time. 



Commencing at the approach to the elevated railway 

 station we find the Douglas spruce {Pseudotsuga mucronata) 

 planted in the space between the traffic road and the park 

 driveway to the left of the path leading to the Conservatories ; 

 this tree is a native of western North America from the Rocky 

 Mountains to the Pacific Coast and is sometimes known as 

 Red Fir. In the far northwest it sometimes becomes 180 

 to 210 feet high, its trunk occasionally as much as 3 ^ feet 



