176 PITTONIA. 
immature, but apparently deeply favose, the depressions run- 
ning in lines transversely. 
At Del Mar, San Diego County, California, April, 1888, 
Mr. and Mrs. Lemmon ; also what seems a state of the same 
with corollas less than half as large, from San Luis Obispo 
County, 1887, by the same diligent botanists. 
RUSSELIA RETRORSA. Snuffrutescent, 4—5 feet high, the 
branches stoutish and strongly 6-angled, the angles rather 
retrorsely hirsute-pubescent : leaves subsessile, of firm texture 
and rough-pubescent, ovate, somewhat rugose-veiny, crenate- 
toothed, less than an inch long : flowers thyrsoid-clustered at 
and near the ends of the branches: calyx-teeth ovate, 
acuminate. 
At Rio Blanco, State of Jalisco, Mexico, Dr. Edward Palmer 
(No. 540), 1886. In the printed list of Dr. Palmer’s plants 
(Proe. Am. Acad. xxii. 442) this very distinct species is con- 
founded with R. sarmentosa, which has quadrangular stems 
that are altogether glabrous, and a different style of inflo- 
rescence. 
BOTANICAL LITERATURE, OLD AND NEw. 
It is purposed to give, under the above heading, observa- 
tions concerning a number of books of botany, in the hope of 
awakening in the minds of some of our younger workers, all 
of whom are perhaps a little inclined to be men of one book, 
an interest in the broader field of general botanical literature. 
Gray’s Manual and the Synoptical Flora, Bentham and 
Hooker’s Genera and De Candolle’s Prodromus are all worthy 
books, great standard treatises which none of us are likely to 
study too carefully or become too familiar with ; nevertheless, 
they do not comprehend a total of the world’s wisdom and 
learning upon systematic botany. The whole field of botani- 
