to quote,25 has shown how enormously the interest of Natural History is enhanced when we regard every production of Nature as one which has had a long history,' and 'when we contemplate every complex structure....as the summing up of many contrivances.' But this can only be done, or at any rate begun, in the field and not in the laboratory.

A more serious peril is the dying out amongst us of two branches of botanical study in which we have hitherto occupied a position of no small distinction. Apart from the staffs of our official institutions, there seems to be no one who either takes any interest in, or appreciates in the smallest degree, the importance of systematic and descriptive botany. And geographical distribution is almost in a worse plight, yet Darwin calls it, that grand subject, that almost keystone of the laws of creation' (i. 356).

I am aware that it is far easier to point out an evil than to remedy it. The teaching of botany at the present day has reached a pitch of excellence and earnestness which it has never reached before. That it is somewhat one-sided cannot probably be remedied without a subdivision of the subject and an increase in the number of teachers. If it has a positive fault, it is that it is sometimes inclined to be too dogmatic and deductive. Like Darwin, at any rate in a biological matter, 'I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer's writings' (iii. 168). The intellectual indolence of the student inclines him only too gladly to explain phenomena by referring them to 'ism,' instead of making them tell their own story.

(To be Concluded)

SHORT ARTICLES.

DATES OF PUBLICATION OF NUTTALL'S COMPOSITE.-The most important of all earlier contributions to the knowledge of Northwest American Composite is Nuttall's elaborate

25 Origin, 426.

paper published in the Seventh Volume of the Second Series of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. The volume bears on its title page the date 1841; and this was, until recently, always given as the date of Nuttall's paper. But in 1891, Dr. Otto Kuntze found evidence, in some European libraries, that the document in question had been in the hands of botanists in 1840.

A copy of the whole volume, now in the botanical library of the Catholic University at Washington explains the matter fully, and removes all doubt about the date, or rather, dates, of Nuttall's Compositæ.

The entire volume was published originally in three parts; each part being issued in a paper cover, with title, and date. Part I, issued in 1840, has a long table of contents, but nothing botanical.

Part II, also issued in 1840, contains a portion of the Descriptions of New Species and Genera of Plants in the natural Order of the COMPOSITE, collected in a Tour across the Continent to the Pacific, etc., by Thomas Nuttall. Part III, issued in 1841, contains the remainder of the paper above-named.

The dates, according to the paging, are as follows:

Pages 283 to 356, 1840.

I now

ARCTOSTAPHYLOS ELEGANS, JEPSON.-This form, decide, is to be referred to A. manzanita, Parry. I do not regard it as even worthy of a varietal name and so make record for the benefit of monographers and others. The name was published in this journal for January, 1893. (Vol. i. p. 15).

OPEN LETTERS.

Distribution of the Darlingtonia in Oregon.

THE Darlingtonia Californica grows plentifully in the Coast Mountains about the 42d parallel. It is to be found in all of the spring runs and swamps and along creeks-in fact in all wet places for many miles and I think this is the home of it and that the upper Sacramento localities are outlying stations. Growing with it are a number of other plants not generally known to range out of California, such as Parnassia Californica, Aster Hendersonii, Helenium Bigelovii, Rudbeckia Californica, Cypripedium Californicum, Scirpus criniger and others that I cannot now call to mind.

The geological formation in the region is a peculiar kind of serpentine and, for the most part, the lower portions of the mountains are well supplied with springs that run clear water all the year.

Yours,

THOS. HOWELL.

Clackamas, Oregon, 16 October, 1895.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS.

THE Setember number of the Bulletin de L'Herbier Boissier contains among other articles the last installment of G. Lindau's monograph of American Acanthaces, and "Herborisations au Cost Rica," by Ad. Tonduz.

IN Garden and Forest of April 3, 1895 (viii, 134, f. 20) Mr. T. S. Brandegee described and figured a new Mimulus, M. Clevelandi, from the south side of Cuyamaca Peak, San Diego Co. It is a perennial woody species spreading by underground roots and said to be one of the handsomest members of the genus.

H. MARSHALL WARD, Professor of Botany, Royal Indian Engineering College, London, has been appointed to the professorship of Botany in Cambridge University, made vacant by the death of Prof. C. C. Babington.

WE have received a copy of Fascicle I of the Synoptical Flora of North America, issued October 10. A review will appear in our next number.

THE Field Columbian Museum has begun a series of botanical publications. Vol. 1, part I, consists of a paper entitled "Contribution to the Flora of Yucatan," by Charles Frederick Millspaugh, Curator of the Museum.

THE Botanical Society of North America held its first annual meeting at Springfield, Mass., August 27 and 28. Charles E. Bessey was elected President for 1896. M. S. Bebb, Rockford, Ill.; W. A. Setchell, Berkeley; W. R. Dudley, Palo Alto, California; and D. P. Penhallow, Montreal, were elected members. Dr. A. W. Chapman was elected to honorary membership.

THE Division of Botany has recently distributed the following numbers of Vol. III, contributions from the U. S. National Herbarium: No. 3, "Flora of the Sand Hills of Nebraska, by P. A. Rydberg; No. 4, "Report upon a Collection of Plants made by J. H. Sandberg and assistants in Northern Idaho in 1892," by John M. Holzinger.

ERRATA.

Page 5, line 21, for Brittanicarum read Britannicarum.