34 ERYTHEA. 



In conclusion I would say that I have to thank the study 

 of botany for very much enchancing my enjoyment of the 

 beauties of Nature, The hills and woods are beautiful to 

 everyone; but how much more pleasure they convey when 

 every tree and every herb that grows among them is an 

 acquaintance and a friend. 



EEVIEWS AND CEITICISMS. 



Notes upon Variotts Species of Iridacece and oilier Orders. 



By Thomas Morong. Keprint from Bull. Torr, Club, 



XX., 467-473. 



This zealous and successful student of our pondweeds 

 and their allies is latterly carrying his investigation 

 into higher orders of the endogens, and the bibliograph- 

 ical side of the work, no less than the phytographical, 

 at least from a certain point, is done with thoroughness, 

 and each new paper is replete with new facts. We are now" 

 told that Tris Germanica is to be added to the list of plants 

 growing spontaneously in the United States. It is also 

 established, in some places, by waysides, in and near some 

 villages in middle California. But, we know it as a more 



than half-wild flower in some meadows of Ehode Island, in 



our boyhood, forty years since. 



The question of the Sisyrinchhtm nomenclature, which 

 several eastern botanists have discussed in recent years, Mr. 

 Morong has taken up anew, returning to tbe old conclusion, 

 namely, that the specific name is not to be either graminenm 

 or angustifoUitm, but '^Bermndianumy This seems to be 

 correct; or, as nearly correct as a man may be expected to 

 get who ignores pre-Linnaean botany according to the behest 

 of our American code-makers. In other words, our author 

 makes, and twice reiterates, the error of writing "5'. Bermu- 

 dianum, L. Sp. 954." There is no such name in any of the 

 volumes of Linnaeus, though there is a S, Bermiidiana; and 

 it is in need of no amendment. But a man must read to a 

 few years back of Linnseus, perhaps, to see that this is not an 



