BRIEF REMARKS. 



183 



any share in the direction, which belongs exclusively to the Gefe local 

 del Museo nacional de Ciencias. The garden, with its botanical mu- 

 seum, forms part of the national museum just named, whose chief 

 director is the celebrated zoologist, Professor Don Mariano de la; Paz 

 Graelle, a Catalonian ; and under whom an English gardener (Jardi- 

 nero mayor) is placed. This person, who is said to know very little 

 of his profession, enjoys nevertheless a much larger salary than any of 

 the three professors attached to the garden. One of these is the above- 

 mentioned Don Vincente Cutanda, professor of organology and phy- 

 siology, and director of the botanical museum- another is Don Pascual 

 Asensio, professor of agriculture and inspector of the agronomical 

 branch of the botanical museum; and the third is Don Joe Alon;o y 

 Quintanilla, professor of descriptive botany, who conducts also botanical 

 exclusions, as well as exercises in determining plans. Of these three 

 gentlemen the first is a tolerably good botanist, well acquainted with 

 the progress and literature of the science, and, although pa.-t forty years 

 of age, is still full of youthful ardour and attachment to botany, and 

 devoted to it from his youth from inclination. 



The botanical museum is placed under the immediate direction of 

 Cutanda. It comprises, besides the agronomical branch already alluded 

 to, consisting of a library and a collection of models, woods, cerealia, 

 and fruits— the botanical library, the herbariums, and the store of 

 seeds. The library, which is well arranged, is seemingly complete as 

 regards the older works, but it is poor in more recent publications. 

 The seed-store is arranged according to the Linnsean system, and has 

 an especial seed-collector (semillero), who gathers the seeds in the 

 garden, and distributes them among other garden*, He stands under 

 Cutanda, who is the director of the garden of Madrid, only as regards 

 corresponding with other gardens, which are connected with it by ex- 

 changing seeds, superintending generally the garden cultivation, and 

 enriching it with new species, but he has nothing to do with the culti- 

 vation itself. The herbariums constitute the most important portion 

 of the botanical museum ; those of Cavanilles, Rodriguez, Nee, Cle- 

 mente, part of the collections of Lngasca, Pourret, and others, being 

 kept there ; likewise many plants of Boissier and Reuter, some gathered 

 by the writer of this notice, and by several of the pupils of the botanical 

 institution. All these collections were lying in the greatest confusion 

 in Rodriguez's time, so that it was utterly impossible to compare any 

 plant, or examine any particular original specimen. Cutanda has made 

 it a point of primary inipoitance to introduce some order into tins 

 chaos, after four years of constant exertion, aided by the semillero, 

 Don Francisco Alea, a young, zealous, and clever botanist. All the 

 -aid collections form now one general herbarium, of about 30.000 

 species, arranged according to De Candolle's method. The specimens 

 of each species, in the several herbarium*, are placed separately in 

 sheets of paper, having a printed label with the name of the herbarium 

 attached ; and a detailed catalogue renders tic search after any par- 

 ticular species verv easv. Cutanda is now engaged in determining all 

 the species in this general hen.a. ium, from first to last, because there are 

 many plants in it, either not at all, or wrongly named. It is likely 



