14 ESS A YS. 



as well as by the collections of travelers, this herbarium is 

 rendered unusually rich in the botany of this country ; while 

 Drummond's Texan collections, and many contributions from 

 Mr. Nuttall and others, very fully represent the flora of our 

 southern and western confines. That these valuable mate- 

 rials have not been buried, or suffered to accumulate to no 

 purpose or advantage to science, the pages of the "Flora 

 Boreali- Americana," the " Botanical Magazine," the " Botani- 

 cal Miscellany," the " Journal of Botany," the " Icones Plan- 

 tarum," and other works of this industrious botanist, abun- 

 dantly testify ; and no single herbarium will afford the student 

 of North American botany such extensive aid as that of Sir 

 William Hooker. 



The herbarium of Dr. Arnott of Arlary, although more 

 especially rich and authentic in East Indian plants, is also 

 interesting to the North American botanist, as well for the 

 plants of the " Botany of Captain Beechy's Voyage," etc., 

 published by Hooker and himself, as the collections of Drum- 

 mond and others, all of which have been carefully studied by 

 this sagacious botanist. 



The most important botanical collection in Paris, and, in- 

 deed, perhaps the largest in the world, is that of the Royal 

 Museum at the Jardin des Plantes or Jardin du Roi. We 

 cannot now devote even a passing notice to the garden and 

 magnificent new conservatories of this noble institution, much 

 less to the menagerie and celebrated museum of zoology and 

 anatomy, of the cabinet of mineralogy, geology, and fossil re- 

 mains, which, newly arranged in a building recently erected 

 for its reception, has just been thrown open to the public. 

 The botanical collections occupy a portion of this new build- 

 ing. A large room on the first floor, handsomely fitted up 

 with glass cases, contains the cabinet of fruits, seeds, sections 

 of stems, and curious examples of vegetable structure from 

 every part of the known world. Among them we find an in- 

 teresting suite of specimens of the wood, and another com- 

 prising the fruits, or nuts, of nearly all the trees of this coun- 

 try ; both collected and prepared by the younger Michaux. 

 The herbaria now occupy a large room or hall, immediately 



