PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN

A Publication of the Botanical Society of America, Inc.

VOLUME 5   OCTOBER, 1959   NUMBER 4

The Humanizing Significance of Botany
By F. W. WENT
Missouri Botanical Garden

(Address of the retiring President of the Botanical Society of America, Inc., delivered at the annual banquet, at Montreal, Canada, August 23, 1959.)

Being a meeting of the Botanical Society of America, this is, perhaps, the only occasion at this Congress, international in the very best sense of the word, where the speaker does not need to feel a slight twinge of conscience in only speaking English. I would like, just because there is no language problem involved here, to thank all Congress participants for the valiant and successful efforts to keep English the main discussion language. I deeply appreciate the effort this means on the part of those botanists for whom English is not the mother tongue, but it certainly meant a much more fruitful discussion.

We are here together as botanists of all different branches, of many different countries, of various professions. This gives me an opportunity to ask some general questions as to the basic significance of our vocation or profession. In this way I may perhaps allay the fears of some of you, that botanical gardens have annexed or even taken over your society, as the profession of your last three presidents might suggest. However, by the democratic process which rights all wrongs in the long run, this chain has been broken by your election of next year's president (unless he takes over the direction of Harvard's botanical garden in Cuba).

Last year my predecessor, Dr. Avery, talked about the importance of the teaching of Botany for the lay public. Although I am not primarily a teacher and actually had always very few students in my classes, I would still like to talk about at least one aspect of the teaching of Botany which has always been prominently in my mind as an ideal. And this is the importance of our subject matter in the development of the mind, or in other words, its general humanizing significance.

We can find many reasons why Botany or Biology, in general, are of importance in the high school or college curriculum for every future citizen so that he may get a better insight in the world in which he lives and to which he must adjust himself. None of what I am saying argues against the importance of good training in Physics and Chemistry; in fact, the latter two disciplines are basic for the under-standing of many biological problems. Yet, an independent training in Biology is at least as important. For instance, one should know the chemical and physical properties of sea water and drinking water, but this becomes only of real importance when we know the role of water in life and the significance of the various components of these waters. The citizen will be called upon to vote for fluoridation, or softening, or iodisation of drinking water, and then his judgment must be based on biological rather than chemical or physical knowledge. Problems of wildlife and soil conservation, land management, grazing, sewage disposal, which are of such importance in the future of the world and which we all should take some interest in, are meaningless without some knowledge of biological principles. Knowledge of genetics rather than physics should guide our decisions about nuclear bomb testing. These examples could be multiplied almost indefinitely and have been (and properly should be) used extensively to advocate the importance of biology in our school curricula. But as far as I personally am concerned, the most important arguments for the teaching of Biology are very often overlooked.

Biology is one of the most exciting subjects for a child, an adolescent, or an adult. It deals with life, all-pervading, all-important, all-embracing subject on this earth. It is the basis for an understanding of ourselves, of our society, of nature. But, just because it is all that, it is also very complex and it is a very large subject, not easily straight-jacketed in a course for high school teaching. Too much of this teaching is still patterned after college teaching in the universities of roo years ago, and after college teaching 5o years ago, when the new and fertile basic subjects of physiology, evolution, heredity and microbiology, or the applied subjects of pathology, agriculture and forestry had hardly been accepted in university curricula.

To the minds of a surprisingly large number of people, the subject of Botany in high school or college is still tied up with the learning of large numbers of Latin names, or cataloguing of leaf shapes. These are mental activities which are quite respectable and are conducive to development of certain aspects of the mind, but they can be classified, with the learning of Latin grammar or all the kings of France, as good but, to most children and grownups, exceedingly dull exercises for concentration and memorization.

(Continued on page 2)

PAGE TWO

PLANT SCIENCE BULLETIN SYDNEY S. GREENFIELD, Editor Rutgers—The State University

40 Rector Street, Newark 2, New Jersey

EDITORIAL BOARD

GEORGE S. AVERY, JR   Brooklyn Botanic Garden

HARLAN P. BANKS    Cornell University

HARRIET B. CREIGHTON    Wellesley College

SYDNEY S. GREENFIELD    Rutgers—The State University

PAUL B. SEARS    Yale University

OCTOBER, 1959   •   VOLUME 5, NO. 4

CHANGES OF ADDRESS: Notify the Treasurer of the Botanical Society of America, Inc., Dr. A. J. Sharp, Department of Botany, University of Tennessee, Knoxville t6, Tennessee.

Subscriptions for Libraries and persons not members of the Botanical Society are obtainable at the rate of $2.0o a year. Send orders with checks payable to "Botanical Society of America, Inc." to the Editor.

Material submitted for publication should be typewritten, double-spaced, and sent in duplicate to the Editor.

CHANGE OF EDITOR

Dr. Sydney S. Greenfield, Professor of Botany in the Newark College of Arts and Sciences of Rutgers—The State University, became Editor of Plant Science Bulletin by action of the Council of the Botanical Society of America at its meeting in Montreal, Canada, on August 19, 1959.

The editor would be glad to receive papers on plants, plant science, botanical education, and news and notes of interest to the membership of the Society, especially articles and letters dealing with professional problems in botanical science and education. It is hoped that the members of the Botanical Society will cooperate with the editorial board in making Plant Science Bulletin a vital professional organ of communication that will serve to strengthen the Society and advance the cause of botany.

The Humanizing Significance of Botany

(Continued from page 1)

Just as the teaching of Latin is no more advocated as important for its own sake, but rather as a background for learning other languages or as a humanistic endeavor through reading of the great Roman authors, we should not emphasize the taxonomical or morphological aspects of Botany in high school teaching any more.

A new biology has grown up, which now reaches in many directions, which gives us an insight in so many peculiarly biological problems, encountered only in living organisms, in man and in nature, that knowledge of the new biology gives us a much better insight in the world around us. Actually, a surprising number of concepts in the world of man have their logical basis and explanation in basic biological phenomena.

As a botanist, I will draw most examples of the way a basic biology training gives a general education from the plant sciences. But much of this could be approached almost as well from the zoological side.

A general education should give a person the background to understand his surroundings, to appreciate beauty, to make his own decisions, and to think and argue constructively. That is to say, not only the critical faculties, but also the creative urge should be developed. The basis of a critical mind is negative; that is to say, it rejects whatever is incorrect or whichever disagrees with common sense or experience. A creative mind seeks new approaches, evaluates in a positive manner and often may be in opposition to established viewpoints, by suggesting another interpretation of well-known facts.

Let us first consider the concept of growth. This is typically biological. It is an irreversible increase in size, brought about by the incorporation of new, dissimilar, materials into an existing system. The irreversibility is a fundamental characteristic: mere water uptake or inflation is not enough; this can be exhibited by gels or balloons. Perhaps the most incisive remark, indicating the fundamentals of the growth process of living things, was made by my son when he was 4 years old. He had been watching me push the lawn mower for perhaps the loth time that year and put the simple question: "Daddy, why doesn't the grass ever grow shorter?" With that remark he had not simply anticipated an anti-auxin, but he suggested a much more fundamental process: that produced by a negative auxin. He did not have the general experience that growth is an irreversible process and he perhaps visualized growth to be controlled by a sort of gear-shift which had a number of forward and a reverse position.

The answer to this remark shows that there are no gears between the fundamental growth process and its realization. We can throw a monkey wrench, such as HCN, in the growth mechanism, and it will stop. But there is no way to have it operate in reverse. And this is the basic idea behind growth: in an organic system no reversal in development is possible.

Another basic principle in growth, more clearly expressed in plants than in animals, is that cessation of growth is the prelude to death. This is inherent in the principle of differentiation: only undifferentiated cells can grow and divide, but once cells have differentiated into leaves or flowers, they have come to the end of the road and are sloughed off with-out continuing their life line.

If we apply these principles of growth: irreversibility and the need for continued growth to prevent death, to what we see around us in daily life, then we find that they generally apply to human institutions as well. A business or a factory may grow by increase in number of employees, in-creased space, or increased sales or inventory, but it cannot decrease in size without becoming moribund. Such a business generally even ceases to exits if it does not grow with an expanding economy. It usually ends when the persons running it retire. We find this also in research institutions, colleges, botanical gardens. If they perform their proper

PAGE THREE

functions, they must grow with the growth of society. If they don't, there is something wrong with their basic setup, they apparently lack vitality. This we also encounter in plants. A plant which is in a dark spot in a forest may not get enough light for further growth. If so, it does not stand still, but it ultimately dies, unless it finds an opportunity to re-establish growth. Thus, we see how the problems of growth are the same in society as in plants, and their study gives us a clearer insight in our human environment.

Associated with growth in higher organisms is another phenomenon: differentiation. Cells of a plant cannot grow indefinitely without differentiation; if they do, pathological calluses, crowngall or cancers are produced. The cells produced by a meristem soon differentiate; some remain embryonic and continue the meristem, others differentiate into sclerenchyma, collenchyma, palisade or spongy parenchyma, fibers, and other types of cells, coordinated in definite tissues and organs and into an organism. A similar differentiation occurs in any growing human organization, where more and more supervisory personnel, more complex bookkeeping and interdepartmental ties develop. It is not always easy to accept these changes, this development of bureaucracy, in one's own organiaztion, be it government or private college, but again the parallels with plant growth should make us more willing to accept these inevitable, I might say fundamental attributes of growth of the organization, for normal growth of a complex organism is impossible without differentiation.

There is a third attribute of development of a completely different nature than growth or differentiation. This is evolution. With this concept the biologist accepted the same duality in thinking which the physicist and chemist had to accept almost half a century later. On the one hand, our thinking revolves around the principle of the immutability of the species, just like all classical physics and chemistry is based on the immutability of the elements. Under the impact of Darwin's arguments biologists had to admit, that in the course of time, this principle of immutability of the species did not break down to some extent, and 30 years ago it became clear that the process of mutation of the species could be speeded up experimentally, just as this was found to be true for the chemical elements at approximately the same time.

This principle of change in well-established units has no relation to growth or development at all, but has produced a new degree of freedom in organic existence, allowing old species to establish themselves in new environments, or increasing their range of occurrence, or increasing their competitive strength. The opposite may also happen, and a less viable form, or an outright lethal, is created. Also here we find a very apt comparison with our human surroundings. A manufacturer, to invade a new territory, must suddenly increase his competitive strength, which he may do by a mutation: introducing a completely new product.

Both the eagerness and the reluctance of manufacturers to adopt new products are understandable from the standpoint of our analogy: although progress beyond normal growth and differentiation is possible only through mutation, it is difficult to say whether this mutation is advantageous or lethal.

Knowledge about the behavior of plants in response to their physical and biological environment, what we generally call ecology, may not have advanced as far as other branches of Botany, for the obvious reason that these problems are so much more complex; still, they provide already many important lessons to the person interested in human sociology.

It is highly important that the law of the minimum and the principle of limiting factors in their modern modification, be generally understood. There are no more striking examples of these principles than different types of vegetation, where either water, nutrients or aeration in the soil, on the one hand, or heat or cold or wind or illumination on the other hand, completely control the occurrence of certain plants or regulate their rate of development, flowering, fruit set, dispersal or germination.

The more complicated cases of mutual inhibition or stimulation in plants, as so strikingly exhibited by growth inhibitors produced by the roots of certain plants, or germination stimulators for the development of Striga, the phenomena of commensalism, symbiosis and parasitism, all have counterparts in our human society, and a better understanding of their underlying principles throw unexpected new lights on human problems. In parasitism we know, e.g. innumerable cases, in which the parasite excretes a toxin which kills the cells of the host plant. The sugars and other solubly nutrients then ooze out of the cell and are absorbed by the parasite. But, like a murder, it is a one-shot affair.

Another case of parasitism is that of the rusts, where the invader may live off his host without killing him using the nutrients in the host as fast as they are formed. This type of parasitism is like the case of the relatives which descend upon the successful man, or the gigolo.

More interesting are the gall insects. They live off the host plant in reasonable numbers, stimulating the host to much greater activity and having him provide not just the necessary nutrients, but luxurious housing at the same time. This is like the luxury mistresses, or gold-diggers, surrounding themselves with apartments and furs, deserting the host when he gets too old, and after hatching, seeking new and greener pastures.

The analogies here are not so important as an understanding of the mechanisms which govern the susceptibility of the host as well as its means of protection, and the way the parasite wards off hangers-on.

Man's appreciation of beauty is based on experience, on what he has seen from his first day in this world. And basically, all this observation goes back to nature. The city dweller may see only little of nature: a spindly tree in a backyard, desperately reaching for light, a grass plot burned by smog, a few shrubs almost ashamed to show their soot-

PAGE FOUR

blackened leaves to the world, and a bouquet of plastic flowers. No wonder that art has become equally stultified when the artist has no absolute reference points any more. It must become clear that even an elementary acquaintance with the laws of form and function, so beautifully exemplified by plants, laws which are not violated in nature, will give one a firm basis for creating beauty in accordance with nature. Phyllotaxy, the basis for branching of plants; flower structure, the proportion between plant parts as controlled by hormones, even abnormal growth as exemplified by galls and fasciations, follow strict rules based on sequences of cell division, cell elongation and cell maturation. The reference grid systems of D'Arcy Thomson, applicable to plants as in the case of leaf and fruit shapes, are remarkably revealing and show the strict logic in proportions within plants and animals. Once one has become sensitized to these rules, a drawing of a lily with 5 stamens or a maple branch with alternate leaves becomes as distasteful and contrary to the basic rules of structure as the watch of Dali drooping over a table edge.

In the realm of morphology, it is equally significant to point out to the student the basis for mechanical strength in plants. The same principles of structure exhibited in plants, the engineer uses everywhere in buildings and machines. In many cases, man went beyond what nature has accomplished: e.g., the wheel, metals, vulcanized rubber; but it would be highly frustrating if in the many centuries of advances in technology we had not come up with something new. Yet, it is amazing that plants came so close to the ideal material for their water transporting system, the rubber tube, without exploiting the rubber droplets in latex. Perhaps this is a good demonstration of the good being the enemy of the best, the tracheids and tracheae obviously being perfectly serviceable.

Perhaps the most incisive experience the study of Nature can provide is the absoluteness of laws. In our human society we all too often can get around what we call laws and get away with it. That is because so many man-made laws are not laws in the sense of scientific usage of the word, but are merely rules, based upon arbitrary standards. Speed laws are good examples: these are not natural laws, but merely conventions, modified by local conditions. All too often we feel frustrated or infuriated if we are caught breaking the speed law or some other equally arbitrary administrative law.

A natural law cannot be broken, such as the law of gravity, or the first law of thermodynamics. Each cell can only come from another cell, without water there is no life, respiration stops in the absence of oxygen, without growth hormones no growth, and any further number of laws have become established. We have to resign ourselves to the limitations these laws have set to life. But at the same time, there is a great deal of satisfaction if one is aware of the absoluteness of the laws. This has been expressed very clearly by Goethe. He, the great humanist, who was a primus inter pares, who seemed so well-adjusted in society, who led his fellow countrymen as statesman and as philosopher, has said, "I only find full rest and full satisfaction in nature. Among people there always will be disagreement and who will tell who is right or wrong in human relations? But the absoluteness of natural laws does not leave lingering doubts: nature is always right." Therefore, familiarity with the laws of nature can give us, if not full satisfaction, then at least resignation in so many cases, where rebellion might otherwise result.

Inseparable from the existence of laws in nature is the existence of causality, the principle that each effect must have its cause in a condition which existed earlier. The statistical nature of so many natural phenomena in no way argues against causality; in such cases, we only cannot sufficiently control the prior conditions, such as which sperm will fertilize which egg cell, but once a particular sperm nucleus has fused with the egg nucleus, an absolute train of causality has been set in motion, and with sufficient control over the environment, the result is completely predictable.

Again, the study of Biology is highly conducive in making the student aware of causality, how whole trains of effects invariably follow definite events, and how for every effect there is a reason. Students perhaps may become disgusted with the "wrong" outcome of an experiment with plants. But nothing is more illuminating to such a student, when analysis of the experiment reveals, that it was not the plant which was in error, but that it was the student who had confused a decimal in his dilutions. Such an experience, showing that the plant does not make mistakes, but responds always right to the conditions imposed by the experiment, will make a better and more cautious scientist and human being.

I do not flatter myself by thinking that tonight I have said anything new. On the contrary, practically everything I said was just basic information which all of you know. However, I hope that you agree with me that all these basic principles, so clearly expressed in our botanical science, have an applicability to so many of our human relations and human ventures, because man is just part of nature. We can understand man and society only when we have a real understanding of biological principles. These should be taught to all future citizens. Biology and Botany have gradually been pushed back in the curricula of high school and college education, as all recent statistics have shown. I am asking not just for a reversal of that trend, but I am asking boldly for a place for Botany, or Biology, or Zoology, in the education of every student.

But in asking, nay, demanding, this place in education, we, as professional botanists, must search our souls, whether in our general teaching we have laid enough stress on principles, and whether we alerted our students to the forest as well as the trees. We also must take into consideration the insufficient number of teachers to fulfill the demand I just made. But, apart from all practical considerations, there is no doubt in my mind as to the humanizing significance of the teaching of Botany.

PAGE FIVE

The Botanical Society of America, Inc.
MINUTES OF THE BUSINESS MEETING held during the IX INTERNATIONAL BOTANICAL CONGRESS, MONTREAL, CANADA AUGUST 23, 1959

1. The business Meeting was called to order by President Steere at 8:2o p.m., immediately after the annual Botanical Society dinner for all botanists which was held in the Normandie Room of the Sheraton-Mount Royal Hotel. Approximately 400 members and guests were present at the meeting, this probably representing the largest attendance at a Business Meeting in the history of the Society.

The reading of last years minutes was suspended since these had been published in the Plant Science Bulletin.

2. The Secretary presented the slate of candidates for each office as follows (arranged from top to bottom according to the highest number of votes received) on the 2nd nominating ballot:

 

President   Vice-President
K. V. Thimann V. J. Cheadle P. Weatherwax			P. J. Kramer L. Constance H. P. Banks
Secretary		Editorial Board Member, 196o-1962
B. L. Turner		J. Bonner
L. E. Anderson		W. H. Wagner
R. Starr	Tie	C. Heimsch

A motion was made and seconded that those persons receiving the most votes for each respective office be elected by acclamation. This motion carried unanimously.

3. The President reported that each of the three pro-posed By-Law changes, which had been circulated with the first Nominating Ballot, received a 3/4 majority of those members voting and that the Council had recommended their approval by the members at the Business Meeting. Briefly, these changes are as follows:

Proposal A, to change the fiscal year end from November 30 to December 31st.

Proposal B, to change the number of years of uninterrupted membership necessary for eligibility to retired status from 30 years to 25.

Proposal C, to change the By-Laws so that Retired Members might receive the Journal at their request upon payment of one-half the annual dues.

A motion was made and seconded that these changes be approved by acclamation. The motion carried.

4. Dr. Steere reported the appointment by the Council of Dr. Sydney S. Greenfield as the new Editor of Plant Science Bulletin to replace Dr. Harriet Creighton who had resigned, so that she might travel abroad.

5. The President reported that the Council had received and approved the various reports from the Society's officers and committee chairmen; these are appended to the original minutes.

Due to the short time available, a motion was made that the formal acceptance of the annual budgetary proposals from the Treasurer and the Business Manager of the American Journal of Botany be left to the Executive Committee of the Council. This was seconded and the motion carried unanimously.

6. A brief summary of the Council Meeting business was presented by the President. This included formal recognition of the excellent work performed by the Committee on the Future Status of the Botanical Society under the chairmanship of Dr. R. Wetmore.

One of the recommendations of this Committee was that "appropriate" advertising be solicited for inclusion in the American Journal of Botany. Dr. L. J. Crockett was introduced as the new "Advertising Manager" in charge of this project.

Among the important items approved by the Council was the organization of a new Section of the Society to be known as the Developmental Section. The original Committee report, which was prefaced by Dr. W. Jensen, Chair-man, is appended as are the new By-Laws for the Section. Dr. Steere gave formal recognition to Dr. Jensen for his leadership in setting up the Section.

The President deviated from the schedule of business to introduce those Corresponding Members of the Society who were able to appear at the dinner as guests of the Society. Those attending and present at the Speakers' were:

J. Feldman T. M. Harris R. Krausel S. LeClercq P. Maheshwari

I. Manton L. R. Parodi E. G. Pringsheim J. Walton W. Zimmerman

It was reported that two botanists, Dr. Hamshaw Thomas and Dr. G. L. Gregory, had been nominated by the Council for Corresponding Membership. The citations accompanying their nomination read as follows:

Hamshaw Thomas: For sustained and productive re-search on the fossil plants of several continents, particularly his critical work on the Caytoniales—for his unflagging effort to fill the gaps in the fossil record and for his inspiration to many workers in the field of paleobotany.

PAGE SIX

F. G. Gregory: For outstanding and fundamental contribution to physiology, particularly in the area of vernalization and associated temperature phenomena as related to the initiation of flowering—and for the stimulation and guidance of a whole generation of students in the general area of plant physiology.

8. Five recipients of Meritorious Awards were announced for the year 1959. The citation accompanying each award was read as follows:

JAMES BONNER, outstanding in plant biochemistry, prolific and original contributor to diverse aspects of that intricate field, author of several penetrating and widely influential texts of plant biochemistry and plant physiology.

LINCOLN CONSTANCE, astute and sound taxonomist, pioneer in cytotaxonomy, and, in an era of diversified out-bursts in scientific endeavors, distinguished exponent of the dictum that plants are still plants.

ADRIANCE S. FOSTER, bold and yet careful investigator in histogenesis, and especially of the shoot apex, where all kinds of things begin to happen, and author of several trail-blazing volumes on comparative morphology and plant anatomy.

BERNARD S. MEYER, outstanding plant physiologist, author of an exceedingly important and much used volume in that field, devoted and unselfish servant in the scholarly activities of The Botanical Society of America.

LOREN C. PETRY, paleobotanist and anatomist, unusually effective botanical teacher who has skilfully guided the careers of thousands of students in the right direction, wise and generous counselor in scientific affairs.

9. The annual Darbaker prize of $250.00 was awarded to Dr. Jack Myers of the University of Texas for his many significant papers in the area of Phycology.

10. After acknowledging a formal greeting from the AIBS President, Dr. James Dickson, it was announced that next year's annual Botanical Society meeting would be held with the AIBS at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma.

11. Grateful acknowledgement was made to McGill University and the University of Montreal and members of their respective staffs for their fine spirit of cooperation and for the excellent manner in which the Congress as a whole had been organized and carried out.

12. The busines meeting was adjourned at 9:15 p.m. whereapon Dr. Fritz Went, the past President for 1958, delivered an address entitled "The Humanizing Significance of Botany."

Respectfully submitted,
B. L. Turner
Secretary, B.S.A.

CORRECTION

The name of Dr. Frank E. Denny was erroneously listed under Necrology in the 1957-1959 yearbook of the Botanical Society. We are glad to report that Dr. Denny is alive and well, and we apoligize to him for the unfortunate error. We wish Dr. Denny long life and good health.

HONORS AND AWARDS

James E. Gunckel, Chairman of the Department of Botany at Rutgers—The State University, has been awarded a Waksman Foundation Fellowship. He is on leave of absence from Rutgers until July 1, 196o, and is spending the year doing research at the Station Centrale de Physiologic Vegetate, at Versailles, France.

Clifford W. Hesseltine and Leonard L. McKinney of the Northern Regional Research Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois were given Superior Service Awards by the Secretary of Agriculture in recognition of research achievements.

H. E. Joham, Texas A. and M. College, was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Section of the American Society of Plant Physiologists. W. C. Hall was elected to a three-year term on the Executive Board.

Irwin Spear, Assistant Professor of Botany at the University of Texas, received the annual Scarborough Award of the University for excellence in teaching.

Norman H. Giles of Yale University has been awarded an NSF and a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Copenhagen next year.

Paul B. Sears, Chairman of the Conservation Program at Yale, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Among the NSF Postdoctoral Fellows are William K. Purves and Walter F. Bertsch of the Yale botany department.

John S. Karling of Purdue University has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London.

W. C. Hall of the Department of Plant Physiology and Pathology, Texas A. and M., received a five year NIH Grant to study the effect of air pollutants on the growth and development of plants.

Peter H. Raven, a graduate student in the department of botany at U.C.L.A. was the recipient of the General Biological Supply House Award of $5,000.

NEWS AND NOTES

Karl Sax, recently retired from Harvard, has been appointed Visiting Professor in the Department of Botany at Yale.

John S. Karling, Head of the Department of Biological Sciences and Director of the Ross Biological Reserve at Purdue University, has been appointed Distinguished Professor. He will occupy the John Wright Chair of Biological Sciences and devote his time to teaching and research in the development, physiology and systematics of fungi.

Charles Heimsch, formerly of the University of Texas, has become Chairman of the Department of Botany at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

Four new members have been added to the Faculty of Botany at Rutgers—The State University. Charlotte Avers, formerly of the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, has joined the Department of Botany at Douglass College; Carl Price, formerly of Harvard, has joined the Department of Plant Physiology of the College of Agriculture; Richard C. Smith, formerly of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, has joined the Department of Botany of the Rutgers College of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick; and Augustus E. DeMaggio, formerly of Harvard, has joined the staff of the College of Pharmacy, in Newark.

Bruce B. Stowe, formerly at Harvard, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Botany at Yale.

Clyde C. Allison of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology of the Ohio State University has received a three year

PAGE SEVEN

appointment to the group working on Weather and Plant Pathology Problems of the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology, World Meteorological Organization.

Clarence E. Taft and Mr. Karl Jaeger, Director of the Inter-national School of America, went around the world this winter to organize the itinerary and offerings which will be covered by a class during the school year, 1959-60. The school is open to high school seniors and recent graduates. Taft will teach the course in Biological Science while on leave from Ohio State University.

John N. Wolfe of Ohio State is on leave to serve as Chief of the Environmental Sciences Branch of the Division of Biology and Medicine of the AEC.

Also on leave from Ohio State is Carroll A. Swanson to be with the Division of Scientific Personnel and Education of the N.S.F. in Washington.

Dale N. Moss has been appointed to the staff of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven to study the effects of natural and man-made environments on the growth of plants.

Working for a year at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station are Mr. and Mrs. Abel A. Sarasola. Mr. Sarasola has been an investigator in the National Institute of Agriculture and Livestock Technology in Buenos Aires. He will study the toxins produced by certain fungi and their role in plant disease. Mrs. Maria Amalia Rocca de Sarasola has been in charge of the provincial laboratory of plant pathology in La Plata and will be studying seed-borne diseases and their control by seed treatments.

Harold W. Hansen, Chairman of the Department of Biology at St. Olaf College, gave a twelve-week series of thirty minute programs on the educational television channel in Minneapolis and St. Paul on "The Plant World."

A. R. Kruckeberg of the University of Washington is con-ducting a field course on plants of the southwest this summer. The travelling Field Course in Taxonomy has been run by the Botany Department for a number of years.

Dr. Yusuf Vardar is now located in the new botany department of Ege University, Bornava, Izmir, Turkey.

Four botanists are affected by the recent decision to institute professional ranks at Chicago Teachers College in place of only designating staff members as "teachers." Herbert F. Lamp, O. J. Eigsti, Arthur A. Scharf and Paul W. Titman have all been made Associate Professors.

C. L. Lundell, Director of the Texas Research Foundation at Renner, Texas, has gone to Guatemala to search for wild progenitors of cultivated plants in the Tikal area of the Peten Lowlands. This is part of a long term exploration program to be undertaken by the Foundation in the Mexican and Central American lowlands.

J. M. Herr, Jr. has joined the biology staff of Pfeiffer College, Misenheimer, N. C. after having spent a year in India with Professor Maheshwari, Delhi University.

Earl W. Lathrop of La Sierra College, Arlington, California is teaching Systematic Botany and Plant Ecology at the Walla Walla College Biological Station, Anacortes, Wash. with which his college is now affiliated for the summer program.

Donald M. Brown and his wife have gone to Kenya on a program set up by the College of Medical Evangelists, School of Tropical and Preventive Medicine, and financed by the Sterling-Winthrop Research Institute, to hunt for natural products, primarily plants, used as medicines by primitive tribal groups.

They will be away from La Sierra College, Arlington, California for from six months to three years.

Dr. Ismael Velez, Professor of Botany at Inter American University, San German, Puerto Rico has finished his book on "Herbaceous Angiosperms of the Lesser Antilles." Botanists visiting the islands might like to know of the existence of this publication of the university.

L. F. Randolph, Cornell, has spent the academic year at Muslim University, Aligarh, India on a Fulbright fellowship as a consultant on embryo culture.

Rosamond McMillan, formerly a Visiting Associate Professor at Agnes Scott College, is now at the new branch of Louisiana State University in New Orleans. This year enrollment was exclusively freshman and there were 1500 of them.

Vernon I. Cheadle of the Botany Department, U. of Cal. (Davis) has left for Australia on a Fulbright Fellowship to collect secondary phloem of dicots and entire plants in a number of families of monocots as well as to study phloem cell walls by electron microscopy.

Two additions to the Botany Department at the Davis campus of the University of California have been made recently: C. L. Foy, a plant physiologist, and P. A. Castelfranco, a plant biochemist.

Russell L. Steere has left the Univ. of California Virus Laboratory to accept a position with the Plant Virology Laboratory, U.S.D.A., Beltsville, Md.

J. P. Nitsch, formerly at Cornell is now Associate Director the "Laboratoire du Phytotron," Gif-sur-Yvette (Seine et Oise) France. Although the phytotron is not yet completed, the laboratories are, and visiting research workers are already coming in. Gif is reported to be a fine place for botanist's sabbaticals.

Margery C. Carlson, on terminal leave from Northwestern University travelled in Europe during the summer.

Howard Arnott from the University of California (Berkeley) has been appointed to replace Dr. Carlson at Northwestern in plant anatomy.

Ralph Slepecky, formerly at the University of Texas, has gone to Northwestern to replace M. Sussman as bacteriologist. Suss-man is at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.

Carroll W. Dodge of Washington University has gone for a year to the University of Recife, Brazil, to be a visiting professor and to advise in the establishment of a mycology research center, library and herbarium. Mrs. Dodge will be visiting professor of chemistry at the same university.

J. E. Livingston resigned as Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at the University of Maine in July, 1958 and is now Head of the department of the same kind at Pennsylvania State University.

Richard J. Campana of the Illinois Natural History Survey has gone to the University of Maine as Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and in charge of plant pathology in the Agricultural Experiment Station.

Wanda K. Farr who is living in Camden, Maine is working on the cytochemistry of fungal and potato tissues in the botany department of the University of Maine.

Fay Hyland, Professor of Botany at the University of Maine, is working on a three year project at Brookhaven, sponsored by NIH on tagging ragweed pollen.

Franklin E. Manzer from Iowa State College has recently joined the staff at the University of Maine.

(Continued on page 8)

PAGE EIGHT

"Invitation to Old or Young Botanists Interested in Working in the Old World Tropics"
W. H. HODGE
Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Penna.

The world-famed Botanic Garden at Bogor (formerly Buitenzorg), Indonesia, is interested in offering hospitality to trained scientists who may be willing to work either at Bogor or at one of its several subsidiary gardens including the lovely mountain garden at Tjibodas. The Foundation for Natural Research, under which the Botanic Garden operates, also needs cooperators for the numerous explorations to the various islands of Indonesia that are regularly carried out under its auspices. Unique opportunities are available both in the various branches of botany as well as in horticulture. Laboratory and herbarium facilities are present as well as an excellent library. The living collection of tropical woody plants under cultivation in the main Botanic Garden is probably unsurpassed anywhere in the world.

Because of the present Indonesian salary scale, this offer will probably appeal to two types of American scientists: 1) young field botanists who, by means of some U. S. post-doctoral scholarship or grant, would like to have the opportunity of gaining tropical experience; 2) scientists about to retire who would like to continue an active and productive life in a tropical environment. For the latter, their own pension plus an Indonesian salary (in addition to the usual provision of living quarters) would make for ample recompense for a couple among wonderfully interesting surroundings and a country which would be highly appreciative of all scientific services rendered.

For more information referrence is made to the recent illustrated article. "The Botanical Garden of Indonesia" by J. A. Schuurman (in the National Horticultural Magazine 37: 123-130. July, 1958). Specific inquiries regarding the above may be sent (airmail) directly to Prof. Kusnoto Setyodiwiryo, Director, Foundation for Nature Research, Botanic Garden, Bogor, Indonesia.

GERM PLASM RESOURCES IN AGRICULTURE

The Botanical Society of America is one of the cosponsors of a symposium on "Germ Plasm Resources in Agriculture: Development and Protection" to be held at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Illinois, Dec. 28-31, 1959. Five sessions will be held to consider Origin of Germ Plasm, Need for and Utilization of additional Sources of Germ Plasm, Developmental Programs in Crops and Livestock, New Approaches to Plant and Animal Improvement, and Perpetuation and Protection of Breeding Stocks.

Botanical Review Numbers Wanted

The Department of Botany of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel has been unable to obtain the following numbers of "Botanical Review": v. 12 (1946) : 7, and v. 14 (1948) numbers 3 and 5. The librarian, Mr. H. Yudkiss would be glad to hear from botanists who have these numbers as duplicates and would be willing to sell them or exchange them for duplicates in his possession. He has for exchange, v. 10 (1944) : 7; v. 14 (1948) : 10; v. 15 (1949) : 7; v. 17 (1951) : 10; V. 22 (1956) : 8; v. 23 (1957) : 10.

Corrections

Dr. Alan Conger is Professor of Radiation Biology at the University of Florida, not Florida State University. The Botany Department of the University of Florida (not F.S.U.) received an AEC grant to aid in equipping a radio-isotope laboratory in which the techniques for research can be taught in plant physiology and other courses in the College of Agriculture.

NEW OFFICERS

The officers of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for 1959 are Dr. W. C. Steere, Director of The New York Botanical Garden, President; Dr. A. C. Smith, Di-rector of the Museum of Natural History, U. S. National Museum, Chairman of the Council; Dr. C. Ritchie Bell, University of North Carolina, Secretary; Dr. Charles B. Heiser, Jr., Indiana University, Treasurer; and Dr. Rogers McVaugh, University of Michigan, Editor-in-Chief of the Society publication Brittonia. Although Dr. H. W. Rickett is retiring as Editor-in-Chief of Brittonia, he will remain Managing Editor of the journal. Dr. Warren H. Wagner, University of Michigan, has been elected to the Council of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for a seven-year term.

News and Notes

(Continued from page 7)

Addison E. Lee of the botany department has been appointed to a professorship of Science Education and will assume the directorship of the University of Texas Science Education Center in September.

Anton H. Berkman, Professor of Biological Sciences at Texas Western became Dean of the Graduate Division last year.

Charles Miller and Lee Ashworth have recently joined the staff of the department of Plant Physiology and Pathology at Texas A. and M.

Harvey A. Miller, Miami University, is spending part of his Guggenheim year in England and on the Continent visiting herbaria following up his interest in the bryoflora of the Pacific.

William D. Gray of Ohio State University is spending his Fulbright year as a Lecturer in Mycology at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyassaland in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.