REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS. 21 
slightest support to any hypothesis whatever. It is (1) too 
indefinite; for he names genera only, rather than species, for 
the most part. But (2), in so far as he ventures to mention 
species, what he says of their natural distribution is not true. 
In the third place (3), he gives names of plants which I dare 
say neither he nor any one else ever saw in that country at 
all. Fourthly (4), the paper abounds in evidence that the 
writer does not know with certainty any genera or species of 
the country about which he is writing; and lastly (5), he 
makes statements regarding recent introduction of plants 
into Colorado, which any botanist well acquainted with the 
country may boldly contradict. 
I shall now proceed to state, with brevity, the grounds 
upon which I make these five serious accusations against 
this pretentious but worse than worthless article; taking 
them up in inverse order. My fifth charge is warranted by 
the astounding assertion that “Rhus glabra * * at the 
foot of our Rocky Mountains, has been introduced since 1860.” 
This well known shrub, never found at all by roadsides or 
on the plains anywhere, was observed by me as early as 1870, 
in the most wild, secluded, and pathless places among the 
foothills of Colorado, where it was as much at home—-as 
surely indigenous—as it could have been said to be in the 
thickets of New York or Wisconsin that same year. Tt is an 
indubitably native shrub, all the way from Wyoming down 
to the borders of Mexico, along these mountains; and this 
statement of mine no botanist acquainted with the region is 
likely to gainsay. It were as reasonable to expect a colony 
of eastern oaks, or one of hickories, in Colorado, as to 
suppose that Rhus glabra is now there as a recent acquisi- 
tion. My fourth criticism has this warrant. The writer 
proposes to have found, among the plant remains embedded 
in a pad of buffalo hair, “seeds and pappus of Helianthus,” 
and “hispid twigs of Huphorbia.” The essential character 
of Helianthus is the absolutely caducous nature of the 
pappus. The student early learns that even in the laboratory 
he must handle a Helianthus head with care, lest the scant 
