types of all of these, except those of the third volume of 
the Coal Flora, are in the Collections of the Botanical 
Museum. These few late types found their way with the 
Lacoe collection, to the National Museum. 
It is scarcely believable that such a valuable collec- 
tion could become “‘lost.”” Yet this is exactly what hap- 
pened, in spite of the splendid care the collection has had 
at the hands of Dr. Robert Tracy Jackson and Dr. J. A. 
Cushman, and the splendid storage facilities made avail- 
able through the generosity of Mr. Elliot C. Lee and 
Protessor G. L. Goodale, then director of the Botanic 
Garden. 
For more than fifty years the collection of Lesquereux 
types has been supposedly lost, strayed, stolen, or sent 
somehow to Europe. Perhaps for this belief Lesquereux 
himself is to blame. R. D. Lacoe of Pittston, Pennsyl- 
rania carried Lesquereux* in the latter’s last years as a 
semi-pensioner. He paid hima generous sum for the few 
types still in his private cabinet and paid him asalary to 
identity the Lacoe collection, which subsequently was 
given to the National Museum. Any species not found 
in this collection were presumably lost. Apparently, 
Lesquereux failed to mention that he had transferred to 
the Harvard Museum all specimens he received in Colum- 
bus. Thatis how the famous Lakes collection came here 
as well as others of lesser size and importance. 
Lesquereux as a describer of species, hundreds of 
them, made the pioneer taxonomic contributions to North 
American paleobotany. However his interests were broad- 
er than this, species are means to an end, and that end 
is the distribution and correlation of entire floras in geo- 
graphic space and geologic time. In this sense he was a 
modern. He significantly recognized a host of cosmopoli- 
*Communication from Dr. David White dated July 16, 1934. 
[117 ] 
