Ill 



NOTES ON CACTE^.— I. 



By Katharine Brandegee. 



Cadecs of Baja California. 



The first collection, from this region, of any importance or ex- 

 tent was made by William M, Gabb, who, in the service of the 

 "Lower California Company," which then held^^a conditional grant 

 of the greater part of the peninsula, traversed the country from 

 Cape St. Lucas to San Diego. This was in the year 1867, and at 

 the request of Dr. Engelmann, he made specimens of all the differ- 

 ent kinds he was able to distinguish. They were, however, so 

 small and fragmentary (the greater part of the collection could 

 have been carried in his vest pocket) and the notes so vague^that 

 Dr. Engelmann, though he believed many to be new species, never 

 ventured to publish any of them^and they remained in his herbarium 

 for neai-ly thirty years, under the tentative names he had given 

 them until their publication by Prof. J. M. Coulter.* 



The second collection was made by T. S. Brandegee in the years 

 1889, 1890, 1892, 1893. He knew nothing of the Gabb collection, 

 and Engelmann being dead he determined and described the species 

 to the best of his ability in various papers published in the Proceed- 

 ings of the California Academy of Sciences and in Zoe. 



The third collection was made by MM. Cumenge and Diguet in 

 the vicinity of Santa Rosalia, and the results published by Dr. 

 Weber, who had not learned of Mr. Brandegee's papers, in Bulletin 

 du Mus. Hist. Naturelle, No. 8, Paris, 1895. 



In the meantime Mr. Jones had published a single species, and 

 Mr. C. R. Orcutt several, as the result of various expeditions into 

 the northern part of the peninsula. 



The work of Professor Coulter was in the nature of a revision of 

 all the previous collections excepting those reported by Dr. Weber 

 of which he appears not to have known. In spite of the advantages 

 given him he found such difficulties that, as he states, "the under- 

 taking would have been abandoned only that it seemed but proper 

 to contribute to the knowledge of the group such facts as has come 



*Contr. Nat. Herb, iii, No. 2, 1894; and No. 7, 1896. 

 Erythea, Vol. V, No. 11 [24 November, 1897]. 



