﻿8o SMITIISONIAX MISCKLr.ANKOUS COI. LECTIONS VOI.. 74 



VISIT TO EUROPEAN HERBARIA 



Mrs. Agnes Chase, assistant custodian of the Grass IIerl)arium, 

 National Museum, visited several of the larger herliaria in Europe 

 during 1922 for the purpose of studying the grass collections. Five 

 weeks were spent in Vienna. The herhariuni of Professor Eduard 

 Hackel, whose work on the genera of grasses in Engler & Prantl's 

 Pflanzenfamilien is the accepted one in current use, is deposited in 

 the Naturhistorisches Staatsmuseum, Vienna. Professor 1 lackel has 

 described about 1,200 species from all parts of the world, ])robably 

 half of them from South America. The types of all but about 50 were 

 found. Most of the missing ty])t's were found later in the herbaria 

 whence he had borrowed material. Besides this collection, of greatest 

 importance to American agrostology, the Vienna herbarium was 

 found to contain many iVmerican types of Weddcll, Philippi, Doell, 

 and Mez, as well as classic collections such as Lechler's plants of 

 L'hile, D'Orbigny's from the Andes. Mandon's from Bolivia, and 

 .Spruce's from the .\mazon, upon which many sjiecies are based. 



A visit was made to Prof. Hackel at Attersee m western Austria, 

 and important but unrecorded items in the recent history of agros- 

 tology were secured. 



In Munich were found the types of Nees's Flora Brasiliensis. a 

 few of Doell's and several of Mez's. xAt the Museo e Laboratorio di 

 Botanica in Florence, Italy, types of Poiret, I'oiteau. and Bosc were 

 studied. Poiret was the author of the grasses in the supplement to 

 Lamarck's Encycloi)edia. His descriptions, like Lamarck's, are indefi- 

 nite. It was necessary to see his plants to be certain of his species. 

 Poiteau botanized in Santo Domingo in the latter part of the i8th 

 century, and made a brief visit to the Luiited States. Bosc was a 

 friend of Alichaux, and came to Charleston in 1798, where Michaux 

 had established a propagating garden. During the next two years he 

 collected in the Carolinas. In Pisa there is a small but very important 

 collection, that of Joseph Raddi, whose Agrostografia Brasiliensis, 

 published in 1823, is the earliest work devoted to South American 

 grasses. These were collected by Raddi himself in 1817-18. Tiie 

 Agrostografia contains 64 species of grasses, of which t,^ are de 

 scribed as new. A number of these had never been identified. The 

 specimens were found to be unusually ample and well ]ireserved, and 

 photographs were obtained of them. (Fig. 82.) 



Ten days were spent at the Delessert Herbarium at Geneva. This 

 herbarium contains, besides full series of the more recent collections, 

 several old herbaria. Of great imj)ortance to the agrostologist is 



