52 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Botanical Garden; which, though small, is very well kept 
by Ruchinger, father and son ; but I could learn nothing of 
any herbarium or botanical amateur in the place. 
I was much disappointed at Padua not meeting with 
Dr. Visiani, who was accidentally absent. Since I last saw 
him nine years since, the collection of living plants in the 
garden is very much augmented, and in his house at the 
garden, he has a good commencement of a botanical library 
and museum, founded originally upon that left by the 
former Professor Donati, and Professor Visiani's own collec- 
tion, rich especially in Dalmatian and Italian plants, and 
some Egyptian and Oriental collections, which he has pub- 
lished. His Dalmatian Flora, bowever, makes very slow 
progress. These Herbaria are, like most continental ones, 
tied up in bundles, between pasteboards, the individual 
specimens being loose in double sheets, the bundles, as 
in several old Herbaria, are put into paste-board cases (re- 
sembling gigantic card-cases) and arranged like books on 
shelves. The time it takes to get at a specimen shows that 
the Herbarium is not very frequently consulted. 
Professor Meneghini is continuing his 4/ge of the Adriatic 
and has also lately published a dissertation on Diatomee, 
which he considers should be rejected from the vegetable and 
restored to the animal kingdom. He is preparing for the 
press a course of lectures on Botany. His Herbarium is 
chiefly rich in 4/gæ, of which he has upwards of two thousand 
species, mostly very numerous, instructive, and well pre- 
served specimens, in excellent order. 'Two or three other 
amateurs of our science were mentioned to me as residents 
of Padua, and possessing small Herbaria; but my stay | 
was not long enough to make acquaintance with them. 
At Bologna I had much pleasure in becoming acquainted 
with the two Professors Bertoloni, father and son. The author 
of the “Flora Italica” is as vigorous, active and cheerful - 
as if it were his own and not his son's hair, that was now 
commencing to turn grey. "They live together | in a house — 
belonging to the Botanical Garden, a much smaller one 
