694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



series of the Transactions of the society. It is arranged according 

 to the Linnsean system and contains four hundred and fifty-four 

 genera with nearly eleven hundred species, including both wild and 

 cultivated plants. Of the naming of these plants, Muhlenberg re- 

 marked in a note : " When I found no name in Linnseus's system, 

 I took a name from other recently published works, or from the 

 letters of Dr. Schreber, with whom I kept up a correspondence. 

 When I found no name in this way, I was obliged to give one 

 myself and to add to it N. S., till better information came from 

 more capable botanists." The cryptogamous plants are repre- 

 sented in this index by twenty-five genera with one hundred and 

 twenty-five species. The work, as its name implies, consists 

 merely of the enumeration of the species observed, without 

 description or indication of their habits or uses. A supplement 

 to this index, presented to the American Philosophical Society in 

 September, 1796, and published in the fourth volume of its Trans- 

 actions, contained forty-four additional genera with sixty-two 

 species of phanerogams, of which nine were hitherto unknown 

 species of grasses ; while the cryptogams were further repre- 

 sented by two hundred and twenty- six additional species, belong- 

 ing to twenty-nine genera. 



Muhlenberg perceived very early in his botanical studies how 

 great confusion was likely to arise if names were conferred upon 

 plants supposed to be new, without considering whether they 

 might not have been previously identified and named by others. 

 We have already described the painstaking care he took in his 

 own notes to find the correct names of his specimens. While he 

 was critical of the work of others, he was always ready to recog- 

 nize their merit, and to make allowance for their imperfections. 

 He wrote to Dr. Cutler of his work on the Useful Plants of New 

 England that, although the author regarded it as immature, " it 

 was of great use to me, and I was very much pleased with it. 

 Every beginning will be imperfect, especially in a new country, 

 and I have not yet read any botanical work without errors. 

 Even Linnseus's works, which were prepared with so much in- 

 dustry, are full of them." In another place he wrote : " Herr 

 Aiton,* in my opinion, makes too many species out of varieties ; 

 for instance, his asters and goldenrods. We must expect such 

 things when descriptions are made from specimens taken from a 

 garden instead of from their natural habitats, where plants grow 

 numerously and in various soils." Other criticisms of similar 

 tenor may be taken from his letters, all made from the point of 

 view of exactness in identification and description. 



Freedom from self-glorification and from solicitude for the 



* In his Hortus Kewensis, 1789. 



