THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 57 



In your list of food-producing plants, I believe every 

 Westerner would want to see the name of Lomatium eons 

 locally known as "biscuit-root", at one time extensively col- 

 lected by the Indians as a winter food. L. farinosum and 

 circumdatum were probably often used along' with the above, 

 as their tubers have the same agreeable nutty flavor. 



The roots of Carum Gairdncri are said by Piper (Flora 

 of Wash. 426) to "have a sweet nutty flavor and were form- 

 erly much used for food by the Indians", though I have not 

 personally confirmed this. 



The use of Aesculus Pavia for stupefying fish suggests 

 that the Western Indians made extensive use of Ercmocarpus 

 sctigcnis in the same way, pounding it when fresh and throw- 

 ing it in the streams. This would give the family Euphor- 

 biaceae a representative in your list. — James C. Nelson, Salem, 

 Oregon. 



NEW SPECIES STILL ABOUND 



"V/T L'CH of the earth has yet to be explored for the forms 

 ■*" A of life. There are fertile regions yet untouched. One 

 collection in Papua yielded some 1,100 new orchids. Re- 

 markable collections of novelties continue to come to herbaria, 

 many of them from regions not very remote. Not nearly all 

 the plants of the globe are known. The systematist must con- 

 tinually be better trained, for he has the task of understanding 

 the older accumulations as well as adjudging the new. He 

 makes increasing contributions to plant geography and dis- 

 tribution and gives us an enlarged judgment on the character 

 of the countries of the earth as indicated by their vegetation. 

 In fact, we never understand a country before we know its 

 plant life. 



Yet it is in the old regions as well as the new that novelties 

 still come to the hand of the systematist. Every edition of the 



