BOTANICAL GAZETTE. gg 



Pacific Coast Flowers and Ferns. — Mr. J. G. Lemmon, of 

 Oakland, Cal., is offering some very fine plants at exceedingly low- 

 rates. He is an indefatigable collector, having traveled extensively 

 through the West, and his collections embrace plants from Southeast- 

 ern Arizona to Washington Territory. He has over 400 of the char- 

 acteristic plants of Arizona, many of which are entirely new to sci- 

 ence. He offers for sale also a collection of 50 species of Pacific 

 Ferns, including many rare and new ones. The following terms 

 place these rare plants within the reach of all who care to have them : 



Sets of good specimens of the phivnogams will be carefully se- 

 lected, correctly labeled and forwarded to any address in the United 

 States, free of postage, for $7.50 per 100. Sets of the ferns at $10 

 per TOO. New Ferns at 25 cents each. The sets will be ready for 

 distribution during the Christmas holidays. Applications should be 

 in hand before December. 



DeCandolle's Phytography. — In the American Journal of 

 Science and Arts for August and September, Dr. Gray gives a run- 

 ning account of the contents of DeCandolle's last work, which is so 

 interesting and instructive that we copy a few extracts from it. 



Chapter XHI relates to difficulties in phytography which have 

 grown out of various methods or absence of method in the nomencla- 

 ture of oruans, and from the want of consideration of the law of pri- 

 ority in such matters. The result of which in some departments, such 

 as histological morphology, is a state of anarchy not unlike that which 

 prevailed in the names of groups before the days of Tournefort and 

 Linnaeus. We may hope that order and lucidity will some day dawn 

 upon this chaos and a common language replace this confusion of 

 tongues. Meanwhile DeCandolle offers certain counsels, the utility 

 of which, he says, is not doubtful nor the application very difficult. 



(i) Hold fast to common and universally known names, whether 

 in Latin or in modern languages. Radix, caulis, folium, flos, etc., 

 with the vernacular equivalents, are not to give place to new-fangled 

 substitutes. This, he thinks, will rid us of "such useless terms as 

 caulomc, phyllomc, etc." Now these terms, along with trichojue, seem 

 to us legitimate and useful, as succinct expressions of a morphological 

 idea; they are annoying only when pedantically ridden as hobbies 

 over ground on which they are not wanted. 



(2) Do not entertain the idea that a change in the mode of consid 

 ering or defining an organ require^ a change of name. Although 

 Linnaeus did take the leaf-blade tor the leaf, and define it accordingly, 

 that did not much hinder the coming in of a truer view, involving merely 

 a change of the definition. But one may intimate that DeCandolle 

 here comes into conflict with ano her rule he insists on, namely, that 

 terms should have unmistakably one meaning. When we say — as we 

 ever shall — that leaves are ovate, we speak according to the Linntvan 

 definition ; when we say that their insertion is alternate, we use the 

 word in a more comprehensive sense ; when we tiave occasion to de- 

 clare that cotyledons, bracts, petals, etc., are leaves, we use the word 

 in the most comprehensive sense. All this involves considerable am- 



