249 PITTONIA. 
in the geographical center of the genus, may speak), than by 
any author since his day. 
The popular, though not botanical writer, Mr. Ernest Inger- 
soll, ran into no such error about Nuttall's being the author 
of his own discovered species, although he would have been 
more excusable, if he had. Speaking of the great naturalist's ` 
occupation, in Philadelphia, after his return from the famous 
western expedition, he says: ‘‘ He devoted two or three years 
to the study of his botanical collections and the publication 
of the results." One-half of those precious results of the two 
years’ perilous travel, and as many of quiet library and her- 
barium work, he published in the first volume of this Flora of 
North America. He had himself been the first to receive, 
from Dr. Torrey, the invitation to share with him the at thor- 
ship of that work. The place for his name on the title page, 
thus proffered, he had declined. Being at that moment not 
only the most noted, but the most experienced North Ameri- 
ean botanist, the one who had already traveled farther in 
America, and seen more than all the rest combined, he fully 
comprehended, what the original projector of the treatise and 
his eventual younger colleague discovered later, namely, that 
it was quite too early to attempt a Flora of North America 
while fully one-half the territory thereof was yet lying an 
almost untraveled and unknown wilderness of botanieal wealth 
incalculable. When 'Lorrey and Gray, after five or six years 
of work on the Flora, saw this fact, as Nuttall had foreseen it, 
they put an end to the publication. It remains unfinished, as 
all know ; nor is its great second edition, the projected Syn- 
optical Flora, much nearer being finished, though half a 
century has passed. 
However, had Nuttall acceded to Dr. Torrey's wish, seat- 
ing himself to the task of a compiler, he would not have 
made the celebrated expedition with Wyeth, and the first 
volume of the old Flora would have fallen short of those 
choice contents, the three hundred and forty Nuttallian 
PODIUM o te SINE 
! Century, xxxii, 238. 
