86 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



M. Huet du Pavilion has received from Chili twelve (and only twelve) 

 beautiful sets of the plants of that country, all named <c des environs 

 de Talca, de Santiago, de Conception, de Chilian/ 5 and the majority 

 of them "des hautes Andes." They are collected by Mr. Ph. Ger- 

 main. A very few of these sets remaining on hand, consisting each of 

 about 200 species, are offered at 50 francs the century. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS 



Engelmann, George, M.D. : Synopsis of the Cactace^; of the Ter- 

 ritory of the United States and Adjacent Regions. (From the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. iii.) 

 8vo. Cambridge, U.S. 1846. 



Dr. Engelmann, the very zealous and able Botanist, late of St. Louis, 

 Missouri, has done good service to the cause of Botany in the publi- 

 cation of this Synopsis. The Cactacea of the United States have been 

 the objects of his study for several years past. "The only Cactus 

 known to Linnaeus from the countries north of Mexico was his Cactus. 

 Opuntia (Opuntia vulgaris). Long after him — more than forty years 

 ago — Nuttall, the pioneer of West American Botany, discovered two 

 Mamillaria and two Opuntim on the Upper Missouri; and, again, 

 twenty years later, in California, a new JEchinocactus. About ten years 

 ago we became acquainted with numerous Cactacece 3 — in Texas, through 

 Mr. F. Lindheimer ; in New Mexico, through Dr. A. Wislizenius ; and 

 in Northern Mexico through the same explorer and Dr. J. Gregg. 

 Some others, and among them the giant of Cacti [Cereus giganteus)^ 

 were indicated in the Gila country by the then Lieutenant W. H. 

 Emory. Soon afterwards Mr. A. Fendler collected several new species 

 about Santa Fe. Mr. Charles Wright, a few years later (1849), disco- 

 vered in Western Texas and Southern New Mexico still other undescribed 

 Cacti. But the greatest addition to our knowledge of the Caciacea of the 

 southern part of the United States was made by the gentlemen connected 

 with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, at first 

 under Colonel Graham, and subsequently under Major Emory. Science 

 is indebted principally to Dr. C. C. Parry, Mr. Charles Wright, Dr. J. 

 M. Bigelow, Mr. George Thurbcr, and Mr. A. Schott for valuable collec- 





