1916.] PHYTOGEOGRAPHIC EXCURSION IN CALIFORNIA 15 



This is the first party of botanists to come to California as an 

 organized excursion. Thirty-six years ago a small party, consisting 

 of the botanists Sir Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray, and a geologist, 

 Director Hay den of the Geological Survey, visited California, and 

 were entertained by the California Academy of Sciences. Their 

 coming was an event long remembered by California botanists. 

 Since that time many new schools of morphology, of physiology, 

 and other branches of botany have come into prominence, schools 

 which in the main deal exclusively with the plant or plant parts 

 under control — in the laboratory, the greenhouse, or under the com- 

 pound microscope. But now there arises a school of botanists, the 

 plant ecologists, who are leading us back to the fields and woods, 

 taking with them the experience of all other schools, and in addition 

 making important use of the observations of the old-time natural- 

 ists. California is a glorious field for such work, and we welcome 

 them here to help us appreciate our own flora, and to help Cali- 

 fornians to an appreciation of it. In this welcome I ask my col- 

 league, Professor Setchell, to join me. 



Professor Setchell spoke a few words of cordial welcome to the 

 visiting botanists, both those of foreign countries and of our own, 

 who had journeyed so far and seen so many wonderful things. He 

 bade them welcome on behalf of the botanical department of the 

 University of California, and on his own behalf, and wished them 

 the greatest success in their further studies in this state and in 

 adjacent states, and expressed the hope that the remainder of their 

 journey might be even more pleasant than its preceding stages. 



The President: "We have in our company tonight a zoologist 

 who has made for himself a celebrated name in geographical prob- 

 lems in America, and whose distributional work with both plants 

 and animals is known everywhere. I take, pleasure in introducing 

 Dr. C. Hart Merriam, long time Chief of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey." 



Dr. Merriam echoed the expressions of welcome already made, 

 and spoke of the special interest that California has for the natural- 

 ist from the great diversity of conditions of soil and climate within 

 comparatively small areas. 



The President : " It is always pleasant to botanists to know that 

 those who sit in the seats of the mighty are friendly to their cause. 

 Most people imagine that the present Acting President of the Uni- 

 versity of California is most celebrated for his achievements in the 

 Philippines, but there are those of us who know that his claims to 

 fame belong elsewhere. In his earlier youth he completed a piece of 

 work on "The Ethno-Botany of the Coahuilla Indians." It is for 

 this that we botanists claim him. I take great pleasure in introduc- 

 ing Dr. David P. Barrows." 



Dr. Barrows: "Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The 

 work on botany mentioned by the Chairman, I had almost forgotten 



