Cambridge, Feb. 11, 1896. 

 To the Members of the New England Botanical Club : 



At the meeting called to consider the desirability of form- 

 ing a club the undersigned were appointed a committee to pre- 

 pare a sketch of the kind of work which should be undertaken 

 by the club. This committee could not well report until after 

 the formal organization, which was not effected until the meet- 

 ing of February 5. An attempt was made on that evening to 

 present informally the views of the committeo, but the late hour 

 prevented a full discussion of the subject. It has seemed to 

 us desirable, therefore, to send to each member a copy of the 

 report in writing with the hope that it will be given due con- 

 sideration before the next meeting, so that, if the plan here pro- 

 posed does not meet with general approval, some other plan 

 may be substituted for it and adopted at the next meeting. The 

 committee feel that a definite plan of action should be decided 

 upon before the opening of the collecting season in order that 

 the good results to be expected from well organized work dur- 

 ing the summer months may not be lost. 



The committee recommend that in the beginning, the work 

 of the club be specially directed toward : first, the careful 

 exploration of the local flora of the vicinity of Boston ; and sec- 

 ondly, the exploration of the alpine and subalpine regions of 

 the White Mountains. While it is not supposed that the work 

 done by all the members will be limited to these two fields, it 

 is advised that, for the present at least, special efforts be made 

 to promote work on the local and mountain floras, reserving to 

 a later date the detailed study of other sections of New Eng- 

 land and the special study of such other botanical questions as 

 may present themselves. For the better organization of the 

 proposed work it is recommended that two standing committees 

 be appointed : one to direct work on the local flora and one to 

 superintend work on the mountain flora. The committees should 

 not be too large, but should include those members who are 

 already known to have a more or less expert knowledge of one 

 or more groups of plants of the region to be studied. It is not, 

 however, advised that all the members of the club be placed on 

 one or other of these two committees, although all may be ex- 

 pected to aid them in their work so far as possible. From the 

 discussion of February 5 the following persons appeared to sug- 

 gest themselves to the members pregont as forming good nuclei 

 for the proposed committees, viz. : on local flora, Mr. Deane, 



