BOTANICAL LITERATURE. 245 
reference to the real and chief elaborator of the Flora as a 
whole. 
Asa Gray wrought during twice four and thirty years in 
the still rich and fruitful field of North American botany, 
and, amid surroundings thrice favorable to large and showy, 
and even substantial, results. His name had been immortal- 
ized had his good labors ended forty years ago ; for just that 
many years have passed sinee he concluded’ the second 
volume of this great work. The task as a whole was, I believe, 
his. Young, energetic, enthusiastic, and, for a man so very 
young, judicious, learned and discreet, in a quite masterly 
way he arranged the materials and gave forth the printed 
pages, part by part, under the patronage and by the advice 
and help of Dr. Torrey. 
And so these two old volumes, quite apart from their great 
usefulness—and that, as we have earlier remarked, can never 
cease—should be regarded as a sacred heritage bequeathed 
us by the greatest names in our botanical ancestry ; a legacy 
more valuable by far than.any we may hope to give to the 
generations which shall succeed us. 
IV. | 
A Study of North American Geraniacee. By Wil. 
liam Trelease. Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. iv. pp. 
7{—104, with twelve plates. 1888. 
Synoptical List of North American Species of 
Ceanothus. By William Trelease. Proc. Calf. 
Acad. Sciences, 2 ser., i. pp. 106—118. 1888. 
In the Nuttall and Gray account of Ceanothus, which 
appeared in a part of the Flora of North America issued in 
1840, twenty species are described. Eleven of these were 
new, and, mainly of Nuttall’s discovery and authozship. 
