NEWS NOTES AND CURRENT COMMFNT. 19 



California, and was the guest of resident botanieta at Berkeley and 

 in San Francisco. 



The new species described by Professor Greene in the last issue 

 of Pittonia, Part 19, can not here be listed, but the titles in most 

 cases indicate the genera in which they occur. " New or Note- 

 worthy Violets" and " New Species of Convolvulus" relate chiefly to 

 West American botany, as does the " Fascicle of New Labiatsc," which 

 contains new species of Stachys, HeMeoma, and Lycopus. This 

 part completes Vol. '6; accompanying it we note the presence of a 

 specific index to the volume. To the previous volume was appended 

 merely a generic index, yet there are few publicatians in America 

 that can dispense with so necessary an adjunct as a specific index 

 less readily than Pittonia. 



Mr. D. G. Fairchild, of Washington, D. C, visited the Pacific 

 Coast in December, 1898, as an agent of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. He goes from here to New Orleans and 

 thence to South America, where he will travel for two years as a 

 botanical expert, visiting all the Spanish-American republics in the 

 interests of the United States Government. Dr. C. Hart Merrian), 

 chief of the Division of Zoology, spent the entire summer of 1898 

 in zoological field work in the Californian Sierras, and devoted 

 also considerable attention to the trees and shrubs. Mr. F. V. 

 Coville, chief of the Division of Botany, visited again last year 

 the Forest Reserves in western Oregon. 



AVe have received the first number of Rhodora, the monthly 

 journal of the New England Botanical Club, which is devoted to 

 the scientific interests of the flora of New England. The Editor-in- 

 Chief is Dr. B. L. Robinson, Curator of the Gray Herbarium, and 

 the Associates are Mr. F. L. Collins, Mr. M. L. Fernald and Mr. 

 Hollis Webster. Mr. Fernald contributes an article on the "Rattle- 

 snake Plantains of New England ; " Mr. E. Brainerd writes of the 

 "Saniculas of Western Vermont," while Mr. F. S. Collins provides the 

 first of a series of "Notes on Algae." Even new species of flowering 

 plants are not lacking to this initial number, for Dr. Robinson names 

 Lo/ctuea Morssii. "A New Wild Lettuce from Eastern Massachu- 

 setts." Mr. Hollis Webster has some " Notes on Some Fleshy 



