86 Rhodora [May 
siter's which “filled forty or fifty folios" — twenty-eight is the actual 
number — but still of goodly size, containing some seven thousand 
sheets. They are chiefly of flowering plants and ferns, but there are a 
number of mosses, lichens and algae, and one mushroom — a species 
of Boletus. The plants are mounted on separate sheets of about 
foolscap size, are arranged systematically according to the older edi- 
tions of Gray’s Manual and are kept in leather-backed portfolios 
evidently made especially for them. They show every evidence of 
having been well cared for, both during Mr. Brace’s life and since. 
The, specimens are brittle from age but otherwise in first-rate condi- 
tion. Most of them have been poisoned and the damage done by 
insects is negligible. They are mounted on various kinds of paper — 
whatever came handy: half sheets of foolscap, leaves from old ac- 
count-books, pieces of plain white or bluish paper — and are attached 
to the sheets in equally various ways. Some are sewed, some are 
glued, some are held in place by strips of gummed paper and some by 
strips of plain paper secured at the ends by the red adhesive wafers 
with which our grandfathers sealed their letters — a method which 
adds brilliancy to the color-scheme of an herbarium but is not other- 
wise to be recommended. According to present-day standards, many 
of the specimens would be considered rather fragmentary, but they 
are carefully prepared and usually sufficient to show the distinctive 
characters of the species concerned. 
Besides Mr. Brace’s own collections, the herbarium contains many 
specimens, both North American and foreign, from other collectors. 
Among American botanists, Oakes, Sullivant, Charles Wright (his 
first Texas collection), Asa Gray, Ravenel, Ives, Torrey, B. D. Greene, 
Dewey, Cooley, Olney, Nuttall, Darlington, Short, Elliott, Bigelow 
and Barratt are represented by one or more specimens. And there 
are numerous foreign ones, chiefly from Europe. Several specimens, 
mostly of introduced plants, are of interest to Connecticut botanists. 
Sisymbrium Sophia, recorded in the Catalogue of Connecticut Plants 
only from a recent collection at Naugatuck, Mr. Brace has from New 
Haven. Senecio vulgaris from Hartford, considerably antedates any 
collection from the state hitherto recorded. Ballota “ nigra," natural- 
ized near New Haven," is doubtless considerably earlier than the Eaton 
collection listed in the Catalogue. Rynchospora fusca from Norfolk 
is not otherwise known from the northwestern part of the state. A 
sheet labelled: “Grasses found in my front yard at 224 Main St., 
