174 Rhodora [July 



separated on the basis of its glaucous, hollow stems, which he says, 

 the workmen in the brownstone quarries were wont to fill with powder 

 and use as fuses. The two reeent attempts to unravel the synonymy 

 of this group agree that Barratt was here redeseribing a Linnaean 

 speeies; 1 hut, as they flatly disagree as to what Linnaean species, 

 Barratt 's name may yet bring peace by taking possession of the field. 

 In the other species recognized, the stem is described as solid and 

 glabrous in E. purpureum, hispid or pubescent and glandular in /•,'. 

 maculatum and E. ternifolium. 



Barratt planned other, more pretentious botanical works — the 

 monograph of willows already mentioned and a local flora of Middle- 

 town which should be "creditable to this place and myself." How 

 far the latter may have proceeded in manuscript there is now no 

 means of telling: local botanists may well be sorry it was never 

 brought to completion. For some reason Barratt never got anything 

 into Silliman's Journal; and the three sets of exsiccatae label-sheets, 

 with their accompanying notes, and a brief article on White Moun- 

 tain plants collected by one of his pupils, E. W. Southwiek, in 1841, 

 make up the sum of his published botanical work. 



Barrett's herbarium is preserved at Wesleyan University. Like 

 so much of his work, it is a thing half-finished. Not more than half 

 of his American plants and none of his European ones are mounted; 

 numerous duplicates were left to lie precariously in folders with loose 

 lahels. The collection was no doubt neglected in Barratt's later 

 years, and for a long time the University was not in a position to give 

 it needed attention. The herbarium beetle is ubiquitous and not 

 in the habit of letting opportunity knock in vain. So it has happened 

 that the greater part of Barratt's flowering material of the willows 

 and a good many specimens in Comptmtae and other groups which 

 appeal to larval appetites are utterly ruined, and others damaged. 

 There remain, however, somewhat less than ](),()()() sheets which, in 

 spite of everything, still constitute a valuable collection, not alto- 

 gether unworthy of the pride which Barratt once took in it. For that 

 time, the specimens are unusually ample. One very tall plant of 

 Solidago aUisnma is cut into sections and mounted on a series of sheets 

 duly indicated— a method with which few contemporary botanists 

 would have troubled themselves. The specimens are carefully 



1 See Rhodora, xxii. r»7ff. and 15711. 



