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PRESIDENPS REPORT 



During the past year the president has played but a small part in 

 carrying on the work of the Society, and yet it has been a pleasure to 

 him to observe its continued success and progress. The curators of 

 the herbaria have been zealous in caring for the collections in their 

 charge and have materially increased them through their persistent 

 efforts. At the same time they have made the collections available 

 to the other members of the Society, either by the lending of speci- 

 mens or by the distribution of duplicate material. 



At the beginning of the year Mrs. Annie Mori ill Smith, who had 

 so ably acted as editor of the Bryologist during the greater part of its 

 existence, felt obliged to retire from active service. The journal was 

 then placed in charge of Dr. A. J. Grout, as editor-in-chief, and a 

 board of associate editors, representing the various interests of the 

 Society, was appointed to assist him. This board consists of Messrs„ 

 G. N. Best, A. W. Evans. J. M. Holzinger, and L. W. Riddle, to- 

 gether with the advisory board officers of the Society. Mainly 

 through the efforts of the editor-in-chief the Bryologist has been con- 

 tinued as far as possible along the lines instituted by Mrs. Smith, and 

 the fourteenth volume, consisting of 108 pages and including numer- 

 ous illustrations, has recently been brought to completion. 



There is still much work for the members of the Society to do. 

 In the field of the Hepaticae, with which the president is most fa- 

 miliar, many parts of the country are still unexplored, and additional 

 species are continually being detected in regions which have been more 

 thoroughly studied. The conditions are much the same with the 

 mosses, and the lichens have received even less attention than the 

 bryophytes. The careful collection of c// the species in a given lo- 

 cality is a task which any member can carry on, and it is only by 

 stich careful collecting, where the more common species are not neg- 

 lected, that our knowledge of geographical distribution becomes ex- 

 tended and established on a firm basis. 



The president congratulates the Society upon the excellent work 

 which it has already accomplished, and looks forward to the continu- 

 ation and extension of this work in the future. 



Alexander W. Evans, 



New Haven, Conn. 



REPORT OF THE CUSTODIAN OF THE MOSS 

 HERBARIUM 



When the Moss Herbarium arrived last March irom St. Louis 

 where it had been for several years stored at the Botanic Gardens, it 

 contained 1588 mounted native specimens, representing 422 species^ 



