1890.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 485 



Recorder, .... Charles Schaffer, M.D. 



Conservator, . . . John H. Redfield. 



The report of the Conservator, which is submitted as part of this 

 report, shows a gratifying increase in the Herbarium — the number 

 of determined species of flowering plants and ferns now exceeding 



30,000. 



Thomas Meehan, 



Vice-Director. 



Conservator's Report for 1890. — The Conservator respectfully 

 submits the following Annual Report upon the condition and pro- 

 gress of the Academy's Herbarium : — 



During the past year large and valuable additions have been 

 made to our collections, I'eminding us that the time has already 

 arrived when we need larger apartments to provide suitable space 

 for such accessions. The chief contributions have been of plants of 

 the tropical regions of America, of which we are now enabled to 

 display a creditable representation, constituting a nucleus for such 

 future accretions as Avill in time render our Herbarium indispen- 

 sable to the student of the floras of Mexico and South America. 



Prof. Rovirosa has continued his researches in the rich flora of 

 the province of Tabasco, and has added three hundred species to his 

 former gifts, a large number of them of great interest, and till now 

 unrepresented in the collection. Mr. C. G. Pringle, noted for his long 

 experience in collecting, and for the judgment and care manifested in 

 the selection and pre])aration of his specimens, spent the season of 

 1889 in the Mexican Province of Jalisco, and we have the result in 

 a series of 335 species, a large proportion of which are new to us. 

 Mr. T. S. Brandegee, of the California Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, has sent us a collection made by him in 1889, in the 

 peninsula of Lower California, a region hitherto so little known 

 that more than half the species were new to us. The scientific ex- 

 pedition sent out by the Academy in the early part of the year, 

 under the guidance of Prof. Heilprin, though mainly devoted to 

 other branches, did not neglect the flora of the regions which it 

 traversed ; and by the aid of Messrs. Stone and Baker, it has con- 

 tributed 325 species, mostly from Yucatan, and from the region 

 about Orizaba and Mexico, a fair proportion of which are novelties. 

 From South America we have received a collection made in Bolivia 

 by Miguel Bang, admirably supplementing those previously niade 

 by Dr. H. H. Rusby, in the same region. 



