NOTES AND COMMENT 



Announcement has been made of the itinerary and arrangements 

 for the American Phytogcographic Excursion, which has been planned 

 by Dr. H. C. Cowles and Prof. F. E. Clements, and will be partici- 

 pated in b}' about fifteen European plant geographers. After a number 

 of short trips in the vicinity of New York and Chicago the party will 

 be formally organised at the University of Chicago and will leave that 

 city on August 8. A day wiU be spent at Lincoln, Nebraska, and a 

 day or two at Akron, Colorado, permitting an examination of the 

 prairies and the great plains respectiveh'. Under the guidance of Pro- 

 fessor Clements about ten days will be spent at Manitou, Colorado, 

 in a study of the slopes of Pikes Peak. The Great Basin region will 

 be seen at Salt Lake City and at North Yakima, Washington, and the 

 Pacific north-west will be explored in the vicinity of Tacoma and of 

 Medford, Oregon. The second week in September will be spent in 

 central California, where the botanists of Stanford University and of 

 the University of California will act as guides to the Yosemite and 

 the Mariposa Grove of sequoias. Two days will be spent at the Coastal 

 Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution at Carmel, CaUfornia, and a 

 single daj' at the shores of the Salton Sea. The regular Excursion will 

 terminate in late September at Tucson, where a week will be spent 

 in an examination of the work and environs of the Desert Laboratory 

 and in an ascent of the Santa Catalina Mountains. 



The Excursion is an outcome of the International Phytogcographic 

 Excursion through Great Britain in the .summer of 1911, in which the 

 organisers of the American Excursion were participants. The itinerary 

 has been planned so as to give a comprehensive view of the principal 

 vegetational features of the United States, and it cannot fail to afford 

 interest and stimulation to the members of the party, aside from the 

 advantages of personal contact and the interchange of views. It is 

 to be hoped that many members of the party will make the choice of 

 route from Tucson to New York, which is open to them, in such a way 

 as to see Texas and the coastal region of the south-eastern States — 

 thereby filling the one serious gap in the review of American vegetation 

 which they will })e able to make. 



239 



