58 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



BOTANICAL INFORMATION 



Fendler's Venezuela, and Wright's Cuba Plants. 



In no country in the world, perhaps, are botanical collections more 

 extensively made and better prepared (and we may now add, better 

 described) than in the United States : and the collectors have proved 

 equally efficient abroad as at home. Two botanists, whose names head 

 this article, after enriching the American Flora by their travels and 

 discoveries in those new Territories which have recently, and happily 

 for the Colonists there, become a part and parcel of the United States 

 possessions, are now prosecuting their researches in more southern 



latitudes. 



1. Mr. Fendler, now we believe a resident at "Colonia Tovar, in 

 Venezuela," has already sent some beautiful sets of the Phaenogamous 

 Plants and Perns of that highly interesting country, to the care of Dr. 

 Asa Gray, Professor of Botany in Cambridge University, Massachusetts, 

 U. S., and which that gentleman kindly undertakes to dispose of for 

 behoof of Mr. Pendler. Of these all are disposed of, excepts four sets, 

 numbering respectively 538, 503, 452, and 414 species. Mr. Pendler 

 continues to collect in Venezuela, and can be written to at the above- 

 mentioned address by any who desire to communicate direct with him. 

 We may observe that all the sets are peculiarly rich in Perns, nearly 

 two-fifths being of that favourite Family of plants. 



2. Mr. Charles Wright, on his late return from Ringgold's and 



Rogers' celebrated United States North Pacific Expedition, where he 

 was employed as botanist, has sailed for and arrived at St. Jago, at 

 the eastern and mountainous extremity of the great island of Cuba, 

 there to devote his whole time to the exploring that totally unknown, 

 and, we cannot doubt, that fertile district, where the mountains at- 

 tain an elevation of 8000 feet. A Flora of the Island of Cuba has 

 indeed been commenced by the late Achille Richard, in 1845, from the 

 collections of M. Ramon de Sagra, but was suddenly discontinued at 

 the conclusion of the first volume, which includes only the u Dicotyle- 

 dones Polypetales," and is accompanied by an expensive atlas of plates, 

 many of which are not described. A separate volume indeed on the 

 Cryptogamia, by the excellent Montagne, appeared, bearing date 1838- 

 1842. The Author, in the Preface, here observes, "que toute la partie 



