\ 



HISTOEY OF BOTA1HCAL EXPLOEATION. 137 



H. PolakowsTcy visited Costa Kica in 1875 and collected plants, of which he pub- 

 lished a list, together with descriptions of those deemed new *. These we have not 

 seen. He also wrote on the general features of the vegetation of the country, and on 

 the cultivated and economic plants f . 



G. Bernoulli. — A Swiss gentleman who took up his residence at Mazatenango, and 

 made botanical collections, chiefly, so far as we have seen, of the tropical and subtropical 

 elements of the flora. Among other things he discovered a remarkable genus of the 

 Sterculiaceae, which was named after him by Professor Oliver. He also contributed 

 a series of letters on the natural productions &c. of Guatemala to Petermann's 

 ' Geographische Mittheilungen' during the years 1868 to 1875. Since the completion 

 of our Enumeration a further extensive collection of Bernoulli's Guatemalan plants 

 has been received at Kew, and a few of the more important additions to the flora are 

 recorded in the Supplement. Bernoulli died in 1878 at San Francisco. 



F. Gaumer. — A zoologist engaged collecting materials for the zoological portion of 

 this work, who has also collected plants in Cozumel and other islands in the Bay of 

 Honduras. These collections are of considerable interest, and they are dealt with in the 

 Supplement. 



Becent collections from North Mexico. — In the Introductory Bemarks to this part, we 

 have given some particulars of the collections made in San Luis Potosi by Dr. C. C. Parry 

 and Dr. E. Palmer. More recently Dr. Palmer and Mr. C. G. Pringle have extensively 

 botanized the States of Chihuahua and Coahuila, and added many novelties in species 

 and a few genera, though nothing particularly striking, besides extending the areas of 

 many other genera and species. Pringle's last collection reached Kew too late to be 

 incorporated in our Supplement, but partial use has been made of it in the compilation 

 of the tables of geographical distribution. 



In concluding this bare outline of the history of botanical discovery in Mexico and 

 Central America, it should be mentioned that we have purposely omitted the names of 

 a large number of persons whose labours in this direction have been of a very limited 

 nature; but they appear in the Enumeration under the plants they respectively 

 introduced alive, or of which they contributed dried specimens. 



* Linnsea, xli. p. 545. 



t Petermann's Geographische Mittheilungen, 1877, pp. 220, 294, & 346. 



biol. CEOTE.-AMBE., Bot. Vol. IV., March 1887. 



