184 PITTONIA. 
II. 
Preliminary Catalogue of Anthophyta and Pterr- 
dophyta reported as growing spontaneously within 
One Hundred Miles of New York City. Com- 
piled by the following Committee of the Torrey 
Botanical Club: Justus F. Poggenburg, N. L. Brit- 
ton, E. E. Sterns, Addison Brown, Thos. C. Porter, 
Arthur Hollick. The N lature revised and 
corrected by N. L. Britton, E. E. Sterns and Justus 
F. Poggenburg. New York, April 25th, 1888, 8vo, 
pp. xviii. go. 
This new production, ranking, as to plan and execution, 8o 
far above the ordinary run of local plant catalogues, merits 
very special consideration. Inquire not who said this; but 
attend to what is said," a noble rule laid down by St. Thomas 
à Kempis, we are fain to dispense ourselves from keeping in 
this ease. 
Truly indeed, in science as in all matters, it is the principle 
and not the man or men which ought to be regarded; and in 
scientific affairs least of all should the authority of a man's 
name or station be taken into the reckoning. But here as 
elsewhere it is generally the case that that which should be 
is not the thing which is; and in botany men look to the 
place whence a book or pamphlet has emanated, and to the 
author’s name. 
For those who desire prestige, Columbia College as a center _ 
of botanical learning, is not without it, as we all know. After 
Philadelphia, the parent city of American Science, New York 
is historically the first; and the botanical luster of Columbia 
College in the days of Dr. Torrey, was only excelled by that 
of Harvard in the later years of the universally lamented Asa 
Gray. : 
An agreeable feature, and more than that, a truly hopeful 
