522 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



' giant root ' as Echinocystis muricatus. These publications 

 were made in the columns of a daily newspaper. Dr. Torrey, 

 in ignorance of this and as a result of his study of the Gov- 

 ernment collections made under Lieutenants Whipple, Parke 

 and Williamson, referred the plants to a new genus which 

 he called Megarrliiza, publishing a species {M. Galifornica) 

 in Parke's report in 1856 and authorizing the enumeration 

 of that species and of M. Oregmia in Newberrj^'s report upon 

 Williamson's plants. The descriptions of the genus and 

 species he delayed, intending to give them in full in con- 

 nection with his report upon the collections made by Lieut. 

 Whipple. The publication of this report, however, was not 

 made until 1857, and in the meantime he learned through 

 Dr. Andrews of Kellogg's genus Marah. Consequently, 

 and more especially on account of the difficulty of deter- 

 mining, from the scarcity of the materials, whether there 

 was really more than one species, he omitted from the re- 

 port all reference to the matter, and nothing more was pub- 

 lished by him on the subject. Nevertheless, the genus 

 Megarrliiza was recognized by Dr. Gray in 1859, in his list 

 of Xantus' Lower California plants, and in 1860, in the 

 Botany of Ives' Report." 



In the above account it will be observed that the author 

 ignores the publication of Marah in Proc. Cal. Acad., I, 38, 

 which was not later than April, 1855. An error of this kind 

 can only be explained by supposing that Mr. Watson had 

 never seen the first edition, of which only 250 copies were 

 issued, nor read the preface to the reprint. 



The publication of the Proceedings of the California 

 Academy of Sciences was begun in September, 1854. Vol. 

 I was reprinted in 1876, and in the preface the editor. Prof. 

 R. E. C. Stearns, now of the Smithsonian Institution, says: 



'* The Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural 

 Sciences for the period included in this volume, were orig- 

 inally printed in a newspaper called The Pacific, published 



