74 ERYTHEA. 
Actcea, though at least six have obtained recognition with 
botanists in times past and present. We have been wont 
to think that there are as many as four or five; one with 
berries constantly black (A. spicata), one with milk-white 
fruits borne on stout, much thickened pedicels (A. alba), 
and about three different red-berried species, two of which 
run into albino states as to the color of their fruits. I 
suppose there is no botanist of Atlantic North America who 
doubts that A. alba is thoroughly distinct from that other 
and red-fruited kind with which it has had the misfortune 
to be confounded by severaleminent men at various periods. 
The white-berried varieties of the other species have fruits of 
a snowy and glistening whiteness; so that the curiously 
thickened pedicels of A. alba are not its only manifest 
character. The white of its berries is a milky white and the 
surface is dull, not shining. Indeed, the berries are said to 
have a form of their own, 7. e., globular rather than ovoid. 
Upon the whole, with Dr. Huth’s learned paper before us, 
we feel like renewing the call made upon East American 
botanists not long ago, to collect living plants of all the 
Baneberries of both continents, and grow them side by side, 
with a view to settling the limits of the species. These can 
be established in no other way. I remark that Dr. Huth 
had not read the most recent of all contributions to the 
history of the genus; that given in the second volume of 
Pittonia. 
We cannot but admire the altogether scholarly character 
of Dr. Huth’s paper; the full list given of authors whom he 
has consulted; the crediting of Myosurus to its true author, 
a pre-Linnean; the implicit censure passed upon Linnzus 
whom he charges with having rejected the good Gesnerian 
name Christophoriana, and having put in its stead Actoa, 
which all botanical scholars know, or may know, belonged to 
the Elder bush originally, and which ought never to have 
been transferred to these herbs. This is an aspect of Dr. 
Huth’s work which, like simple truthfulness everywhere, will 
commend itself to all who are opposed to shallowness, 
superficiality, and time-serving. Epw. L. GREENE. 
