International Excursion in America. 323 
Besides the above-mentioned leaders, many American botanists 
joined the party for shorter periods; and indeed one of the 
pleasantest features of the tour lay in the numerous opportunities 
thus afforded to the visitors from abroad of making the acquain¬ 
tance of their American confreres. 
The arrangements of the organisers included the provision 
for members of the party of a pamphlet detailing the general 
arrangements of the tour (and incidentally furnishing a most 
useful guide to American travelling in general); as well as of a 
series of six sectional excursion programmes with full itineraries 
of each section, and excellent descriptions of the scenery and 
vegetation passed through by train or visited by the party. 
The following notes do not, of course, profess to be in any 
way a complete record of the excursion ; such a record would 
require indeed a considerable volume. They merely attempt to 
present an outline of the tour and such of the impressions of the 
present writer as may be conveniently set down in this place. 
Most of the members of the party arrived in New York 
during the closing days of July, and made trips to the interesting 
“ edaphic prairie ” of Hempstead Plains in Long Island, and to 
the pine-barrens and salt marshes of New Jersey. The writer 
joined the party some days later at Chicago, and is thus unable 
to speak from personal experience of these excursions, but it may 
be stated that the New Jersey pine-barrens are of special interest 
to the European botanist, because they have much in common 
with European heathland. Dominated by Pinus rigida, with which 
are associated several species of more or less dwarf and scrubby 
oaks, forming a sparse and open woodland, the sandy soil is largely 
covered with a shallow dry peaty humus formed by Cladonia, and 
sometimes by species of Polytrichum. Species of Vaccinium and 
the closely-allied Gaylussaccia are also characteristic. On the 
whole, as in the case of the European heaths, the formation is, 
floristically, rather poor. In the depressions between the sand- 
ridges are “ cedar-swamps ” dominated by Chamcecyparis thujoides, 
in which occur Snrracenia purpurea and Scliizcea pusilla. Professor 
Harshberger, of Philadelphia, was the principal leader. 
In New York the party visited the unique Brooklyn Botanic 
Garden, the Botanical Department of Columbia University, under 
the charge of Professor R. A. Harper, and the New York Botanical 
Garden in Bronx Park, which bids fair to become one of the leading 
botanic gardens of the world. The Garden contains a tract of 
