SHORT ARTICLES. 77 



Hesperochiron pumilus, T. C. Porter. A few plants were found 

 near Summit Station, C. P. R. R., in the bed of a small rivulet 

 down which water runs. when the snow is melting. Though searched 

 for assiduously in the surrounding country no more specimens were 

 discovered. 



Pyrola minor, L. Mr. J. W. Congdon found this in the region 

 around Mono Lake, during the past summer. This is the second 

 locality reported from California. Cf. Eryth. VI. 93. — Alice 

 Eastwood. 



Notice of Naudin. — The death, on March 19, 1899, of Mons. 

 Chas. Naudin removes another of the few disinterested characters 

 whose career is marked by untiring efforts to discover and cultivate 

 new plants of utilitarian interest, and to distribute them as widely 

 as possible over the earth. 



We first hear of him as associated with Brongniart and Decaisne 

 at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. He there made a study of the 

 Cacurbitacese in which family of plants he remained interested up 

 to the time of his death ; I received a letter from him written as 

 recently as December 22 last, asking for seeds of wild Gourds 

 from Western North Americn,. He is said to have cultivated and 

 experimented upon some twelve hundred cucurbitaceous plants. As 

 a result of these experiments he was able to state that while the 

 races or varieties of the same species of Cucurbita will cross with 

 extreme facility, Cucurbita maxima, L., C. Pepo, L., and C. mos- 

 chata, Duch., will not hybridize. 



Naudin also monographed the family Melastomacese. He was 

 selected as Director of the Villa Thuret (the private Botanic 

 Garden established by Thuret and Bornet) when it became a 

 Government Botanic Garden and Experiment Station, and he held 

 the position till his death. 



But Naudin was probably best known for his interest in Economic 

 Botany and plant acclimatization; his "Manuel de L'Acclimateur," 

 based on the " Select Extra-tropical Plants " of his friend von 

 Mueller, is an invaluable aid to the student of agricultural and 

 commercial botany. His last donation to California was a collec- 

 tion of seeds, including the " Co urge Patate " of the French, of 

 which he writes, "elle est tres grimpante et courante, suivant les 



