46* 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
not. Mendel’s law, the rule of mathematical probabilities, the fascination of 
strange mutations — of old the gardeners called them sports — , as students we 
cannot let these alone; charmed are we by the very instability which baffles all 
our scheming. We have now within the state several great collections of 
flowering plants. The munificence of Hon. O. M. Olsen and the industry of 
Mr. Somes have brought together a large collection of flowering plants at Ft. 
Dodge. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick have amassed a fine collection at Lamoni. They 
have perhaps an almost complete collection of the flowering plants of Iowa. The 
great collections of the University and the State College have been brought 
together in large part during the twenty-five years we celebrate. In the herb- 
arium of the University the work of Professor Shimek and Miss Cavanagh has 
been most effective. No historic reference to this herbarium would be complete 
which fails to take account of one or two of its most valuable treasures. In 1893 
the University herbarium received as a gift a large set of duplicates from the 
British Museum, embracing thousands of sheets from various parts of the world. 
In 1892 the University received a car-load of fossil cycadoidean stems from the. 
Black Hills of South Dakota. To science these old plant remains are simply 
invaluable. Every Iowan, at least, will take pleasure in the fact that the col- 
lection is, as a whole, unrivalled and further that in it is found the most 
perfect specimen of the sort so far discovered. From this was taken the 
flower which gives the chief ornament to the monograph recently published 
by the Carnegie Institute at Washington. 
In 1909 the herbarium was by the gift of Mrs. L. V. Morgan, still further 
■enriched in being made the depositary of the magnificent herbarium, chiefly 
mycologic, accumulated during his life by her distinguished husband, Professor 
A. P. Morgan of Ohio. 
These collections taken with the Wingate collection of slime-moulds, secured 
in 1898, and the myxomycete herbarium of Professor M. F. Peck, also now at 
the University, make the entire mycologic property of the University certainly 
as rich as any on this continent. 
We have had also collections of other cryptogams. The pteridophytes of the 
state have been probably all assembled by Professor Shimek, and are also to be 
found in several collections more or less completely represented. The Les- 
quereux mosses are at the State University and to these have been added very • 
many representing the Iowa flora. At the State College through the industry 
of Professor Pammel and his assistants, most of the parasitic forms associated 
with plant disease, have place. The Fitzpatricks too, have given attention to 
this field and have at Lamoni a by no means inconsiderable herbarium of fungi 
with other cryptogamic plants. Professor Fink, now of Oxford, has probably 
every Iowa species of lichen represented in his collections. 
So much for collections and herbaria. But this is only one side of the work 
of our taxonomists; some of these have been great publishers as well as great 
collectors. Professor Pammel in his work on poisonous and injurious plants 
has done a great deal of thorough taxonomic work — his book on poisonous 
plants is famous, so is his volume on “Weeds of the Farm and Garden.” His 
Grasses of Iowa constitutes so far the most valuable of the Bulletins published 
by the State Geologic Survey. He has enjoyed the assistance of a long list of 
helpers, some of whom are enrolled with us and some of whom we name later. 
A printed list of publications brought out by the staff of the Botanical Depart-' 
