THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. I9 
ing and the leaflets are sent to all who enroll as members. The 
secretary is Miss Alaria E. Carter, Boston Society of Natural His- 
tory, Boston, y[d.ss. The imitator of this society, the ''Wlldflow- 
er Preservation Society of America," is approaching the subject 
by means of illustrated lectures held mostly in our larger cities. 
Membership in this society costs a dollar a year. The secretary 
is Charles L. Pollard, National ^luseum, Washington, D. C. 
Those who are actively interested in protecting the wildflowers 
will probably find one or the other of these societies to meet their 
requirements. 
. 'Tt seems to us that the director of the Bronx Zoological Park 
is unnecessarily agitated over the threatened extinction of wild 
flowers within his domain," saye Leslie's Weekly. "He writes 
a long letter to the Herald complaining that in spite of all 'print- 
ed warning and appeals in three languages,' and the efforts of a 
corps of detailed watchers, the children will persist in picking the 
wild violets, the arbutus, the columbines, and other wild flowers 
growing in the park, and, in consequence, all these natural attrac- 
tions are soon likely to disappear entirely. We fail to be moved 
by the director's pathetic plea for the wild flowers, our sympathies 
being rather with the children who are described as rushing to 
them with 'cries of joy,' and picking them 'as fast as their fingers 
can fly.' We doubt very much whether these 'raids' can be stop- 
ped, even if the police, the park employes, and the parents com- 
bine in the effort, and, what is more, we would not stop them if 
we could. Daisies, dandelions and violets will doubtless continue 
to grow in the vast spaces of Bronx Park for years to come, des- 
pite all the depredations of 'little hands,' and if they are finally ex- 
terminated in this way, as the director fears, why, let them go. 
.What does it matter ? Far better so than to institute a govern- 
ment of terrorism in the park for the repression or punishment of 
the little people who are charged with rushing with 'cries of joy' 
among the flowxrs." 
Leslie's Weekly is quite right in this matter. There is some 
reason in preventing the public from mutilating the dogwood and 
other trees for their blossoms or uprooting choice wildings, but 
with other plants the case is different. Every year the Bronx 
