MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 11 



comments on the range of Salix nigra. A brief extract is here 

 given, in order that the attention of collectors may be drawn to this 

 tree: — 



"Do you remember anything about S. nigra as it occurs at 

 Visalia? Is it widespread over the adjacent country or local? I 

 have several different collections of this species from that locality, 

 and infer that it is either common — abounding in individuals — or 

 else a few trees are conspicuous and attract attention. 



"Then, too, do you remember anything about the San Bernardino 

 County localities? What I want to get at is this: I had only a few 

 months ago a string of single collections of S. nigra from Texas to 

 the Sacramento Valley. Your observations settle the question of its 

 frequency in the latter region, and now I find in your Academy 

 Herbarium material, specimens collected by Dr. Thurber more 

 than forty years ago at El Paso with this interesting note: 'Common 

 all along the Rio Grande, 40° to 50°, cut for firewood.' If I can 

 get a few more reports like that instead of my string of possibly 

 rare finds, I will be able to publish S. nigra as growing in reason- 

 able abundance all along the line. 



"It seems very interesting and remarkable that a species, the range 

 of which westward is so effectually debarred by the great plateau, 

 should steal around the mountains at the south and then occur 

 plentifully on the Pacific Coast almost, if not quite, as far north as 

 it does in the Mississippi Valley. 



♦'Yours sincerely, M. S. Bebb. 



"Rockford, III., Sept. 28, 1895." 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND NEWS. 



The fifth fascicle of the Phycotheca Boreall- Americana, issued by 

 Messrs. Collins, Ho'den, and Setchell, has just appeared. The 

 following numbers are from the coast of California: 221, Ulvafasciata; 

 229, Codium mucronatum var. Californicum; 232, Petrospongium 

 Berlceleyi; 238, Gymnogongrus linearis; 239, G. Griffithsice; 241, 

 Rhodomela Larix; 246, Polysiphonia villnm; 248, Ceramium codicola; 

 and 249, Halosaccion Hydrophora. 



