CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 137 
guesswork rather than established facts. I have had a chance to check 
up on the work of Knowlton and Ward on certain geological forma- 
tions. Take, for example, Knowlton’s work on the Tertiary flora of the 
upper Snake region. There are certain regions of exposures in which 
fine leaf impressions are to be found. Knowlton figured and described 
certain genera as Populus, Salix, etc., making numerous species based on 
those impressions. Now what competent botanist would dare to identi- 
fy any species of Populus on the leaves alone, knowing the species as 
they grow all around him? And yet here is a paleobotanist who does 
goose chase, 
In my work on Astragalus I made a serious effort to get at the 
origin of the genus in geological time. I found nothing worth consider- 
son who tackles Cactaceae at once invites contrast with the magnificent 
work on the family by Engelmann, the greatest of American botanists, 
and he must be a very great person to appear anything but a pygmy in 
knew what they mean and what they 
insisting that all new descriptions be in Latin. 
7 in looking over this 
U mbelliferae by Miss Mildred Machias. 3 confess in er th 
very epee and cahatte work by Miss Mathias that I do not like it. 
I would like to go through it critically and show up all its shortcomings, 
but personal reasons prevent. : rtion, but follows, in the 
