90 REVIEWS. 



The first is our common Pllea pumila. Dr. "Weddell has 

 overlooked the fact that Kafinesque had founded a genus 

 (Adice or Adike) upon it, although the name is mentioned in 

 the work cited by him, where the plant was first published as 

 a Pilea, and although Dr. Torrey had adopted Rafinesque's 

 genus, and figured the species, in an earlier and more consid- 

 erable work (" Flora of the State of New York "), which, 

 having unfortunately been published by the State, and in a 

 large edition, has in consequence remained almost unknown 

 to science. Considering that the three sepals of the fertile 

 flower in this species are nearly equal and not gibbous, it may 

 be doubted whether the single species of Blume's genus Achu- 

 demia, differing only in having five sepals, should not rather 

 be appended to Pilea. We dare say that Dr. Weddell would 

 have so arranged it, if Blume had not published the genus. 



Since the appearance of the third part of Weddell's mono- 

 graph, but before it had reached this country. Dr. Torrey has 

 published, in the report on Dr. Bigelow's fine California col- 

 lection made in Lieutenant Whipple's Railroad Survey to the 

 Pacific, a new Nettle allied to Boehmeria but with the peni- 

 cillate stigma of Urtica, namely, his Hesj)eroenide tenella 

 (" Pacific Railroad Reports," iv. p. 139). This little plant, it 

 now appears, comes nearest to Wight's monotypic genus Cha- 

 mahaina of India, of which better details than Wight's as to 

 the female flowers and fruit are figured in the present mono- 

 graph. The stigma is intermediate in character between that 

 of Chamabaina and that of Urtica ; and, moreover, as the se- 

 pals of the male flower want the pointed gibbous tips of the 

 former, the stipules are inconspicuous, and the cotyledons are 

 not only reniform but (which is unnoticed in the published 

 description) pretty strongly emarginate at the summit also, 

 the genus will probably be retained. 



Great thanks are due to Dr. Weddell for his labors upon 

 this family, which he found in a most unsatisfactory and diffi- 

 cult state, and has left in such condition that Nettles and their 

 allies are easy and inviting objects of study. 



