EARLIER INVESTIGATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEPARTMENT. 3 
EARLIER INVESTIGATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF 
BOTANICAL RESEARCH. 
Upon taking up his duties at the Desert Laboratory in September, 
1903, Dr. W. A. Cannon began the investigation of certain problems 
involving study of the relation of plants to atmospheric moisture, in 
which some notable improvements in methods and some important 
results were obtained in the next two years, as indicated by the titles 
published in the Year Books of the Institution. Incidentally, attention 
was also paid by him to the morphology and physiology of phanerogamic 
parasites, which are found in some abundance in the desert, and to other 
specializations in root-structure for water-storage and in chlorophyl dis- 
tribution in shoots. 
Prof. V. M. Spalding was granted the privileges of the Laboratory 
late in 1903, and also carried on some work upon the relations of shoots 
to atmospheric moisture. Later he began a systematic study of the dis- 
tribution of desert plants, and in accordance with a comprehensive plan 
was given a series of grants to extend his work, in which notable prog- 
ress has been accomplished in some of the major problems presented. 
Mrs. E. S. Spalding was also given the privileges of the Laboratory in 1903, 
and has taken up an investigation of certain features of water-storage by 
cacti and succulents of the region contiguous to the Laboratory. 
Dr. B. E. Livingston was given a grant in 1904 for carrying out an 
investigation of the relation of plants to soil moisture, and spent the 
summer of that year in residence at the Laboratory. The results 
obtained are embodied in publication No. 50. 
Prof. Francis E. Lloyd, Teachers’ College, Columbia University, was 
given the privileges of the Laboratory in 1904 for the purpose of carrying 
out an investigation upon the physiology of stomata, which had been sub- 
sidized by the Botanical Society of America. In the following year this 
work was continued under a grant from the Institution, and has now been 
brought to completion and the results published as publication No. 82. 
Mr. Frederick V. Coville, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
continued an investigation of the drink plants of the North American 
Indians, which had been begun during the Laboratory location trip, and 
the results of his work were published by the Smithsonian Institution. 
Dr. D. T. MacDougal, of the New York Botanical Garden, carried 
out various pieces of explorational work, paying attention to observa- 
tions on distribution, ecology, and desert topography in Texas, in 
the vicinity of the Colorado River, from The Needles to the Gulf of Cal- 
ifornia, around the mud volcanoes of this region, in the Cucopa Moun- 
tains, and in the Salton and Pattie basins, the results of which have been 
brought out in various publications. In much of this field-work Mr. 
