50 Years Ago

The completion of the Flora URSS is a scientific event of great significance not only to botanists of the Soviet Union ... During the War work was almost entirely suspended as most of the authors were evacuated from Leningrad. However, incredible efforts were made to continue the work. Thus, late in the autumn of 1941 in the besieged city ... an attempt was made to print Volume 11. B. A. Tikhomirov ... obtained the necessary amount of paper and ... this volume was printed. N. F. Goncharov, already desperately weakened by starvation, proceeded with the account of the genus Astragalus which made up Volume 12. Later that winter this account was defended as his thesis for the degree of doctor of biology, and in February 1942 Goncharov died of hunger ... Thus, thirty-three years of work and the participation of about a hundred authors were required for the completion of ... a Flora of 30 volumes. We remember all our colleagues, many of them long dead, who contributed to its achievement. We have done what we could. We welcome the young botanists and wish them success.

From Nature 13 March 1965

100 Years Ago

Insects Injurious to the Household and Annoying to Man. By Prof. G. W. Herrick; The House-Fly, Musca domestica, Linn. Its Structure, Habits, Development, Relation to Disease and Control. By Dr. C. G. Hewitt — In addition to insects in the zoological sense of the term, spiders, mites, ticks, solpugids, scorpions, and centipedes are passed in review, and the British reader cannot but feel that some compensation for not being an American is afforded by the comparatively scanty house-fauna of his native land.

From Nature 11 March 1915 Footnote 1