66 FLOWMkS ()!' THK FIELD AND ItiKKST. 



trees and shrubs for naturalization in France. He remained in 

 this country from 1785 to 1797, making the most of his excellent 

 opportunities for collecting and studying our flora. He estab- 

 lished and conducted in the interest of his mission two extensive 

 nurseries for arboriculture, one near New York and another near 

 Charleston, South Carolina. Just before his death in 1802, was 

 published one of the works for which he is principally known, a 

 "Treatise on the Oaks of North America." Paris, 1801. 



The year following his death Mons. L. Richard, a celebrated 

 French botanist, prepared a Flora Borcali Americana, from 

 Michaux's extensive collections in this country. In this work is 

 mentioned, though not described, the plant now under notice. It 

 was collected somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina, and 

 was out of flower, the corolla and stamens having fallen. 



" Early in the year 1839," writes Dr. Gray, "I found and ex- 

 amined this specimen in Michaux's herbarium, and received from 

 the hand of Mons. Decaisne a drawing and some fragments of it. 

 In a paper treating of the botany of these mountains published in 

 January, 1842, I ventured to found a genus upon this plant, under 

 the above name, trusting that diligent search prosecuted by myself 

 and by all botanists visiting the region would duly bring it to light. 

 The protracted failure of these endeavors has thrown an air of 

 doubt over the minds of my associates in the search, as to the 

 actual existence of any such plant. In 1868 I had the pleasure 

 of announcing the discovery of this genus, not indeed where we 

 were looking for it, but where experience had led me to expect 

 that any or every peculiarly Atlantic States type might recur, 

 namely in Japan." 



But the Japanese plant also was found without corolla or sta- 



