1066 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



for the collection of Willows and other water-loving trees, &c. The 

 collection of herbaceous plants occupies beds in a broad glade, along 

 which flows a stream of water in which are grown in taxonomic sequence 

 the aquatic relatives of the plants to be found in the beds. The new 

 Pinetum will fill the hillside between the Museum building and the great 

 group of plant-houses. The Museum is Italian Renaissance in style, 

 with a front of 308 ft., a height to the top of the dome of 110 ft., 

 and is fireproof throughout. It is said to be the largest, most elegant, 

 most satisfactorily illuminated, and, for its purpose, the best adapted of 

 any similar edifice in the world. The windows on the main museum 

 floors are of greater width, and about the same area as the intervening 

 piers — this having been made a special feature of the design from its 

 inception. Like the plant-houses, it is heated by steam from a power- 

 house some distance from both. On the basement there is a lecture 

 theatre to seat seven hundred persons, also spacious halls for special 

 exhibits, flower-shows, &c. When necessary, these halls can be utilised 

 for permanent museum space. The first floor is devoted to economic 

 botany ; the second to general museum, i.e. the cases contain types of all 

 the families of plants from the most simple to the most complex. The 

 third floor contains the library, herbarium, &c, and laboratories. 



The great group of plant-houses covers about an acre of ground ; all 

 the different houses are connected with each other — the central house 

 of the group being a hundred feet in diameter and eighty feet high, without 

 any central pillars to interfere with the general view. This house, in 

 which there is no staging, is devoted principally to Palms, of which a 

 considerable number of good specimens of genera and species — many of 

 them fruiting annually — have been got together. From the Palm-house 

 on each side a number of other houses diverge ; these are furnished with 

 slate staging. As a rule the plants of a certain family are grown 

 together ; the Myrtacece, Protectees, &c. occupy each its share of shelving, 

 and are thus easily compared and studied. Taken all round the plants 

 were very well grown, and some, not a few, remarkable specimens were 

 noted. Considering the short time that has elapsed since the houses 

 were built, the conditions and extent of the collections were wonderful. 



A recent development in the work of the New York Botanical Garden 

 is worthy of special mention : i.e. the founding of the Desert Botanical 

 Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution. Dr. Cannon, one of the Aids, 

 has been appointed resident Director, and Dr. D. T. Macdougal one of the 

 two members of the Advisory Board. The Desert Botanical Laboratory 

 has been founded for the thorough investigation of the physiological and 

 morphological features of plants under the unusual conditions to be found 

 in desert regions, with particular reference to the relations of the 

 characteristic vegetation to water, light, temperature, and other special 

 factors. North America contains more than a million square miles of 

 territory known to the geologist, geographer, and botanist as desert. 

 No similar inquiry to that above outlined having yet been instituted in 

 any part of the world, it is unnecessary to insist on its great importance. 



A second excursion was a trip by steamboat up the Hudson to 

 Pouijhkeepsie. Here carriages were provided which took the members of 

 the Hybrid Conference to the house and gardens of Mr. Newbold, who 



