88 Rhodora [May 
particular year — Symplocarpus foetidus is no. 1, Alnus incana 2, Epi- 
gaea 3—and continued chronologically, each species receiving its 
number consecutively, as it was obtained. It is possible, roughly, 
to follow spring, summer and autumn flowers through successive 
years. The starting point of the series seems to have been the spring 
of 1818. A fly-leaf from an old account-book is used as a mounting- 
sheet and on the back of it is written: “Plants collected in Litchfield 
in 1818." Other similar sheets, bearing on their backs the names 
of plants, statements of habitat and dates of collection, numbers 
(always low) and the marks of specimens which have been removed, 
reinforced by a reference to “my old Herbarium” in a note of Mr. 
Brace's, show that he originally kept his material in large blank-books, 
putting as many specimens (and species) on each page as 1t would 
hold and inserting them as collected. Later, when he wished to make 
a systematic arrangement, these specimens were taken out and either 
remounted or replaced — and much data, which we should now like to 
have, was lost in the process. 
One specimen, marked as received in December, 1824, is numbered 
1960. "With these clues to the chronology of the numbers, it is possible 
to figure roughly what number a given specimen should bear to have 
been collected and in Mr. Brace's hands before the date of the list, 
1822. It should be below 1400 — the great majority are actually 
below 1300. If then we find a plant not definitely marked as from 
elsewhere, numbered below 1400 and bearing a name used in the list, 
there is a good probability that it was collected by Mr. Brace at Litch- 
field, and a better one that it shows what he meant by the name used. 
It may do this, even it were collected by some one else. 
This method does not work with entire smoothness, nor always 
with satisfactory results. Gratiola virginiana, for instance, is described 
in the list as having purple flowers. One would guess that this came 
from confusing I/ysanthes, which is not in the list at all, with G. 
virginiana of Elliott, which is described as purple-flowered, and that 
true G. virginiana would be the plant listed as G. neglecta Torr. But 
the specimens of G. neglecta and G. virginiana in the herbarium under 
different numbers, are both good G. virginiana; Ilysanthes appears 
under the name, Lindernia, which it usually bore in the earlier floras; 
and we are left with nothing but our original guess. And specimens 
from other collectors will not do at all in critical cases. The record 
which we should most like to verify is that of Isanthus brachiatus. 
