STANDLEY TKEES AND SHRUBS OF MEXICO. 19 



work is concerned, the Nova Genera et Species is the first important 

 work treating of Mexican plants. The collections obtained in South 

 America were much more extensive than those from Mexico, and for 

 Venezuela, Colombia. Ecuador, and Peru the work is of even greater 

 importance than for Mexico. Humboldt and Bonpland were the 

 first to make known to science many of the most common and charac- 

 teristic Mexican plants. 



Besides these and other systematic works, Humboldt published 

 accounts of his voyages, which are replete with original observations 

 upon matters of natural history. He was the father of the science 

 of plant geography, and published several classic works upon the 

 subject, the best known of which is his Essai sur la Geographic des 

 Plantes.^ 



Bonpland was born in 1773 in the French city of Rochelle. Some 

 time after his return to Europe, in 1816, he decided to establish him- 

 self in America, and went to Buenos Aires, where he gave courses 

 in natural history. He traveled in the more remote parts of Argen- 

 tina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, and finally settled in Paraguay where 

 he established a factory for the preparation of mate. This act seems 

 to have aroused the jealousy of the dictator Francia, and in 1821 

 a band of his agents attacked the finca, killed some of the employees, 

 and wounded Bonpland himself. The latter was put in chains 

 and kept nine years in captivity, but later was released and devoted 

 his attention to agricultural pursuits. He died in 1858. 



SYSTEMATIC TREATMENT. 



KEY TO THE FAMILIES. 



Subking"doin Pteridophyta. 



Plants without flowers or set'ds, but producing spores. Ferns. 



Rhizomes creeping, very slender, producing mostly ascending or reclining 

 vinelike leaves of indeterminate growth ; sporangia relatively few, sub- 

 globose to pyriform, dehiscing vertically ; sori flattened. 



GLEICHENIACEAE. 



Rhizomes erect or ascending, mostly arborescent, bearing a terminal crown 

 of large leaves ; sporangia numerous, ovoid, dehiscing horizontally ; sori 

 essentially globose CYATHEACEAE. 



^Friederich Alexander von Humboldt et Aimg Bonpland. Essai sur la 

 ggographie des plantes ; accompagne d'un tableau physique des regions 

 6quinoxiales, fonde sur des mesures ex§cutees depuis le dixieme degre de 

 latitude boreale jusqu'au dixi&me degre de latitude australe pendant les annees 

 1799-1803. Pp. 1-155. Paris, 1805. 



Also, Friederich Alexander von Humboldt. De distributione geographica 

 plantarum secundum coeli temperiem et iltitudinem montium, prolegomena. 

 Pp. 1-249. pi. Paris, 1817. 



