69 
r 
Hortus Kewensis, in the second edition (1813), enumerates only 24 
species. The Loddiges, great cultivators of palms, who possessed in 
their day much the largest collection known, enumerate 210 species 
in their nursery catalogue of the year 1825. In the Herrenhausen 
conservatories, Hannover, Wendland had assembled 287 species in 
1835, and 445 in 1882. This is the largest collection in the world ; 
but the noblest must be that of the Botanical Gardens of Buitcnzorg, 
Java, which, in i860, boasted of 27^ sneriem. ** all standinor nnVprl in 
th 
e open air. 
It is only when the literature of the order is brought together sys- 
tematically, that we appreciate the extent and variety of palms. In 
the new Genera Plantarum, Sir Joseph Hooker characterizes 132 
genera of true palms, and indicates about 1,100 species. 
Our readers may like to know what palms are indigeneous to the 
United States, and what names they now bear. Without counting 
one or two tropical species which grow in Southern P'lorida, and 
which are outlying Cuban and Bahaman species, we have two true 
palmettos, Sabal pahneito, and 6*. Adansoni\ the blue palmetto, 
J^hapidophyllum hystrix of Wendland; the saw palmetto, Serenoa ser- 
rulata of Hooker. This is the old Sabal serrtdaia^ upon which 
Hooker has recently founded a new genus, dedicating it to our asso- 
Wats. 
tf^ 
Finally we 
have, just beyond our national borders, namely on the Islands of 
Lower California, a palm of a peculiar genus, instituted by Mr, Sereno 
Watson, the Erythea edulis; and in Southern California the elegant 
^V<-'^shingt6nia filifera^ with which Wendland has complimented our 
country by naming this palm in honor of its first president. The 
pnly other president so distinguished is Jefferson. Jeffersonia diphylla 
IS one of our choicest spring flowers. — Science. 
Morphology of the Husk of Carya, — At a recent meeting of the 
Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences Mr. Meehan exibitedsome 
nuts of Carya glabra, Torr., which had been brought in by one of his 
seed-collectors from a tree in the woods in the vicinity of Philadel- 
phia. They had two, or sometimes three, nuts in a single exocarp, as 
in the manner of Castatiea vesca, the common chestnut. The collec- 
tor was under the impression that all the nuts borne by the tree were 
of a similar character. 
Dr. Asa Gray, who was present, remarked that this occurrence of 
two or three nuts of O/^j^ within the same husk, either separate or 
partly coherent, was of much morphological significance. Specimens 
jike these, said to have been collected in Montgomery County, Penn., 
had been sent to him several years ago, with the remark that the 
Jj'ee bore a good many such abnormal fruits; Dr Gray believed that 
Jne conclusion to which they inevitably pointed had not yet been pub- 
"shed. It was, however, communicated to Dr. Engelmann, along 
^V'^h a portion of his specimens, at least five years ago. The conclu- 
sJ^on drawn was the following: The husk, or so called exocaj-p, of 
^^O'^, is an involucre, usually containing a single female flower, and 
connate with its ovary; its true morphology is revealed when, as in 
^^is case, it contains two or three flowers. The stone or shell of the 
