BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 143 



Banksian Herbarium, and taken up. I may here say that in the 

 winter of 1838 — 39 I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance 

 of the venerable Menzies, then about ninety-five years old. 



In the Supplement, Pursh was able to include a considerable 

 number of species, collected by Bradbury on the Upper Missouri, 

 in what was then called Upper Louisiana, — much to the discontent 

 of Nuttall, wbo was in that region at the same time, and who, 

 indeed, partly and imperfectly anticipated Pursh in certain cases, 

 thiough the publication by the Frasers of a catalogue of some ot 

 the plants collected by Nuttall. 



To v come now to the extent of Pursh's Flora, published nearly 

 sixty-nine years ago. It contains 740 genera of Phamogamous 

 and Filicoid plants, and 3076 species. Just about double the 

 number of species contained in Michaux's Flora of eleven years 

 before. 



The Cell-State. — One of the most interesting articles recently 

 published in the Popular Science Monthly is that of Prof. Ferdi- 

 nand Cohn, ot Breslau, bearing the above title. It is especially 

 interesting to a lecturer and teacher who is always casting about 

 for apt illustrations which will make plain and fix in the memory 

 truths which stated in a technical way would make no impression. 

 Prof. Cohn considers cells as individual citizens, leaves as villages, 

 and the whole plant as a state, and very aptly carries out these 

 figures in explaining the relation of different parts in the life work 

 of the plant. How extensively he has done this may be inferred 

 from his conclusion: 



"Gifted writers on social politics have recently endeavored to 

 illustrate the development and interrelations of human society by 

 analogy with a living being and its cells. We have taken the con- 

 verse course, and have endeavored to make the life of the plant and 

 its cells comprehensible by a similitude with a state organization 

 and its citkens. We have endeavored to show that what man has 

 regarded as the highest ideal of his conscious effort in the strug- 

 gles of the world's history has been prefigured in quiet accomplish- 

 ment in the world of plants. It is the representative of the idea of 

 the state which leaves its individual citizens to develop themselves 

 freely according to their inborn natures, and to work together on 

 an equal footing for the good of the whole; which preserves to the 

 villages and the provinces their self-administration, and yet subjects 

 them in every instant to the higher interests and laws of the 

 whole; which appears ready armea against the external enemy, 

 preserves peace and unity within; which applies the capi- 

 tal accumulated by the common labor of all the citizens to the 

 advantage and advancement of the whole, without letting it be 

 preyed "upon by any; which in untiring activity never suffers a 

 pause, and by continuous renovation endures tor centuries, always 

 increasing, always blossoming, and always beariug fruit/' 



