129 
tioned in my Desrnids of the United States, p. 145. The semicells 
are smooth, broadly eUiptic, with the angles terminated by two, long, 
stout, subulate spines. ' • 
Lyngbyapapyrina^ Kir. {^P hormidium papyraceum^ Ktz.) — Collected 
by W. A. Setchell, New^ Haven, Conn. 
Oscillaria chalybea^ Mertens. Florida. 
Beggiaboa leptomiiiformis^ Trevis. — Collected by Miss G. Lewis, 
Clifton Springs, N. Y. April, 1885. 
Spirulina tenuissijna^ Desmaz. — Frequent in sulphur springs, 
Green Cove Spring, Florida, and Clifton Springs, N. Y. 
The Origin of Herbaria,*— At a meeting of the Botanical Society 
of Lyons, May 5th, 1885, Dr. Saint-Lager gave the results of the 
researches that he had made regarding the historical origin of her- 
baria. He had been led to this study by reading a work recently 
published by Messrs. Gamus and Penzig upon the subject of a herba- 
rium of the end of the sixteenth century discovered in the archives 
of Modena. In the first place, Dn Saint-Lager stated that in the 
writings of the naturalists of antiquity no collection of plants that 
had been first dried and pressed and then united in volumes is ever 
spoken of. Yet it is certain that among the Greeks there were botan- 
ologot^ who, as the name indicates, devoted themselves to the gathering 
of plants. These persons were called also rhizotomoi^ ' root-cutters/ 
and it was their business, particularly, to stock the shops of the 
phytopolai, or herb-dealers, called in Latin herbariL 
We know also that a botanical garden was established at Athens 
by Aristotle, and afterwards ceded to Theophrastus his pupil, and 
his successor at the Lyceum. Theophrastus bequeathed his garden, 
natural history museum and dwellings to his disciples. Pliny tells 
us that he often enjoyed visiting the garden wherein the venerable 
Antonius Castor cultivated all the plants of Italy, Greece, Asia 
Minor, Egypt and India. There was also a botanical garden near 
the celebrated School of Medicine of Alexandria. Later on, in the 
middle ages, the centre of phytological studies was transferred to 
Salerno, where Matth^eus Silvaticus founded a garden which served 
as a model for all those that were established in several towns oi 
Italy, Holland, Germany, England, Russia and France.^ 
As botany, on account of the numerous applications formerly 
made of it in medicine, was, ixmong the natural sciences, the one that 
had most adherents, it seems surprising at first sight that the art of 
preserving plants, dried and pressed, did not keep pace with that of 
cultivating them, and that Linnaeus's aphorism that omni botanico 
herbarium necessarinm est\\ds not from all times been a fundamental 
clause in the cartulary of botanists. It is well Xo remark that the 
word herbarium, which might prove misleading, was used up to the 
middle of the sixteenth century to designate a botanical treatise 
accompanied with engravings opposite the text. Such is the Her- 
barium of Apulcius Platonicus and that of Giacomo Dondi, Le Gram 
*From the Bulldin trimesirial de la Sociiii botanuinc de Lyon, Aprii-June, 
1885, p. 61. 
