THE PLANT WORLD 87 



"Oh, children ! who gather the spoils of wood and wold, 



From selfish greed and wilful waste your little hands withhold. 

 Though fair things be common, this moral bear in mind, 

 Pick thankfully and modestly and leave a bit behind." 



The Audubou Societies for the Preservation of Birds send out 

 traveling lecturers, accompanied by a lantern and slides ; I hardly 

 think our work can be done in the same way, but might we not accom- 

 plish by means of a travelling lecturer who would go about to different 

 towns giving talks, which, having the interest of the personal element, 

 might be heeded where circulars, placards and pamphlets would fail to 

 influence ? If he could also interest his hearers in making a list of the 

 plants of their township or county they might be stimulated to protect 

 their plant-species, and forbid their being shipped to distant cities. 



Boston, Mass. 



NOTES ON ELUOTTIA RACEMOSA. 



By Roland M. Harper. 



IN the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, last August,Dr. Small 

 has reported my rediscovery of the rare shrub ElUottia racemosa, 



which had not been known in the wild state for over twenty years. 

 But as he did not go into the history of the plant very extensively, and 

 at the same time did not quote my remarks correctly, I have prepared 

 these additional notes on the subject, in order to summarize as com- 

 pletely as possible the existing knowledge of the species. 



The name ElUottia racemosa was first used by Dr. Muhlenberg in 

 1813, in his Catalogue of North American Plants (p. 40), but the first de- 

 scription of the genus with its single species appeared four years later 

 in Elliott's Botany of South Carolina and Georgia (1: 448), and the pub- 

 lication of the name therefore dates from that point. 



Elliottia seems to have been discovered by Elliott himself, near 

 Waynesboro, Burke County, Georgia, but the exact date of the 

 discovery is not at present known. In Reliquae Baldwinianae, which 

 consists mostly of the correspondence between Dr. Muhlenberg 

 and Dr. Wm. Baldmn, compiled by Dr. Darlington, and published 

 in 1843, there are several interesting references to this plant. The first 

 is in a letter from Muhlenberg, dated April 20, 1813, where he says : 

 " Have you observed in your travels, an Octandrous plant, which Mr. 

 Elliott discovered, and which, in my catalogue, I have named Elliottia 

 racemosa ? I wish to have information concerning the//'iw7, whether it 

 it is a Cai^sula, or Bacca. Mr. Oemler had the shrub, once, in his 

 garden." His catalogue had not been jjublished at that time, but 

 appeared several months later. 



