necessary in some places. In New Jersey 
are a number of state aid roads having 
grades of 7 and 8 per cent, and one of 
10 per cent. The Massachusetts State 
Highway Commission, which has probably 
made more careful scientific search in road 
construction than any other state, has fixed 
no minimum grade, but it appears on some 
of their important roads the maximum 
grade is 7 per cent. 
For mountainous roads where the bulk 
of the traffic is 1 down grade the maximum 
grade is often 8 per cent, and sometimes 
as much as 12 per cent. Experience in 
heavy freighting shows that wagons can 
be controlled on 12 per cent grades, but 
cannot be satisfactorily controlled on 
steeper grades. I believe in the construc- 
tion of roads in our national parks 10 per 
PLANT SHIP 
A collection of plants just received by 
the Missouri Botanical Garden from Aus- 
tralia is of more than usual interest. This 
includes four Macrozamia Moorei, two 
male and two female; two Cycas media, one 
male and one female; two Macrozamia 
spiralis (possibly M. Miquclii), one male 
and one female ; six large, six medium, 
and twenty-four small plants of Bowenia 
serrulafa ; all of which were secured from 
the vicinity of Rockhampton, through the 
kindness of Professor R. Simmons, Cura- 
tor of the Botanic Garden, Rockhampton, 
Queensland, Australia. The shipment was 
three months on the way, but the plants 
were so well packed (see illustration) that 
they not only suffered no injury, but in 
some cases continued to grow. 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
cent grades should be the maximum, and 
this for a limited length. 
A width of road for our national parks 
should be adopted which would not make 
them too expensive and at the same time 
would be wide enough not to endanger 
lives at the precipitous points. The width 
of travel way wide enough for necessary 
traffic is ordinarily overestimated. Two 
wagons' having a width of wheel base of 
S feet and width of load of 9 feet can 
pass on a 16-foot roadbed and leave 6 
inches between the outer wheels and the 
edge of the paved way and a clearance of 
1 foot between the inner edges of the 
roads. An extreme case of this kind will 
rarely occur, hence a width of 16 feet 
should be sufficient unless there is con- 
siderable rapid traffic, and this is a feature 
MENT FROM 
These plants belong to the family Cyca- 
daceae, of which Cycas revoluta, the so- 
called “funeral,’’ or “sago palm,’’ is the 
best known example. Perhaps the most 
interesting the lot received is Macrozamia 
Moorei, a plant which is rarely found in 
botanical gardens and is rapidly being ex- 
terminated in the field because of a poison 
contained in the leaves, causing a paralysis 
of the cattle w'hich eat it. At Springsure, 
the only known locality for Macrozamia 
Moorei, a notch is first chopped in the 
trunk of the plant and then a hole bored 
in the center. This is filled with arsenic, 
killing the cycad within a short time. 
Macrozamia Moorei grows from ten to 
twenty feet in height and may be over two 
feet in diameter. A splendid crown of 
117 
w'hich w'e must sooner or later deal with, 
for I believe that we cannot long exclude 
the advent of rapid traffic in the form of 
automobiles from our national parks and 
that our future construction must be 
guided by this feature. 
The Massachusetts Highway Commission 
carefully measured the width of travel 
way on numerous crushed-stone roads and 
found an improved width of from 15 to 24 
feet, the average being 16 feet. The max- 
imum width of the traveled roadway av- 
eraged 14.92 feet, and the width of nu- 
merous traveled roads averaged 11.5 feet. 
Upon this evidence the commission con- 
cluded that a width of 15 feet is ample, 
except in the vicinity of the larger towns. 
(To be continued.) 
A U S T R A^L I A 
leaves is produced, sometimes exceeding 
one hundred. The male and female cones 
are striking features of the plant, on ac- 
count of their size and the unusual number 
which may be produced at one time. One 
hundred and three male cones in a single 
unbranched plant have been counted. 
The particular point of interest, at least 
botanically, about Macrozamia Moorei is 
that it represents the nearest approach to 
the Bennettiales, a group of fossil, cycad- 
like plants existing in the mesozoic era. 
Never before has a living cycad been found 
which, because of its numerous lateral 
cones and their mode of occurrence, came 
so near to the conditions obtaining in these 
fossil forms, and it may truly be said that 
Macrozamia Moorei is the missing link so 
far as this particular group is concerned. 
SHOWING METHOD OF PACKING PLANTS SHIPPED FROM AUSTRALIA. 
