ON REVIEW OF “STATE AND LOCAL FLORAS.”’ 
: CoLuMBIA COLLEGE, NEw York, January 14, 18gI. 
THE Epitor oF ‘‘ Zor:’’ My Dear Sir—Enclosed please find a 
communication which I should be glad to have appear in an early 
issue of your journal. 
Yours very truly, ee BRITTON. 
ON Mrs. BRANDEGEE’s REVIEW oF My List or STATE AND 
LocaL FLoras. 
** Think you a little din can daunt mine ears ? 
Have I not in my time heard lions roar ? 
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, 
And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies ? 
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue, 
That gives not half so great a blow to the ear 
As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire ? 
Tush! Tush! fear boys with bugs.”—PETRUCHIO. 
The somewhat caustic review of my recent paper on ‘‘ State and 
Local Floras,”’ by Mrs. Brandegee, printed in the November issue of 
“Zoe,’’ necessitates a word of explanation on my part. I only wish to 
say that no attempt was made to publish an index to the literature 
of North American Botany as’ she appears to infer, and at least 
endeavors to indicate. The idea was to admit nothing except the 
titles of what could fairly be called local lists or floras. As I have 
said, it was difficult to draw the line in some cases, and had the 
scope of the work been slightly extended, many papers could have 
been included. To criticise me for leaving out descriptive revisions 
of wide-spread genera or papers containing descriptions of new spe- | 
cies from wide areas, is not to criticise my work, because I never 
intended to include them. The review is, therefore, illogical and 
unfair, 
The geography of my amiable critic is almost as bad as my 
own. She evidently believes that the Yellowstone National Park 
is a part of Wyoming, whereas authorities agree that it is a piece 
of United States property. : : 
But the review has been of service to the botanists of the country — 
in a way probably not planned by the writer, for it has given us 
_ further proof that the two supposed Brandegees are one, not alone 
‘matrimonially but literally. For otherwise it would be exceedingly ae 
