+ 
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* 
i 
Notices of European Herbaria. 5 
which was sent to the latter, who transmitted it to Linneus for 
publication in the Acta Upsalensia. At an early period he at- 
tempted a direct correspondence with Linneus, but the ship by 
which his specimens and notes were sent was plundered by pi- 
rates ;* and in a letter sent by Kalm, on the return of the latter 
to Sweden, he informs Linneeus that this traveller had been such 
an industrious collector, as to leave him little hopes of being him- 
self farther useful. It is not probable therefore that Linnzus re- 
ceived any plants from Colden, nor does his herbarium afford any 
such indication.t From Gronovius, Linneeus had received a 
very small number of Clayton’s plants, previous to the publica- 
tion of the Species Plantarum ; but most of the species of the 
Flora Virginica were adopted or referred to other plants on the 
authority of the descriptions alone. 
Linnzus had another American correspondent in Dr. John 
Mitchell,t who lived several years in Virginia, where he collected 
» “* Vid. Letter of Linneus to Haller, Sept. 24, 1746. 
t The Holosteum succulentum of Linnweus (Alsine foltis ellipticis carnosis of Col- 
den) is however marked in Linneus’s own copy of the Species Plantarum with the 
sign employed to designate the species he at that time possessed ; but no correspond- 
ing specimen is to be found in his herbarium. This plant has long beena puzzle to 
American botanists ; but it is clear from Colden’s description that Dr. Torrey 
has ‘tly referred it, in his Flora of the Northern and Middle States, (1824,) 
ya ia media, the common Chickweed. Governor Colden’s daughter seems 
fully to have deserved the praise which Collinson, Ellis, and others have bestowed 
48 near as I can translate them.” Then follows Miss Colden’s detailed generic 
character, prepared in a manner which would not be discreditable to a botanist of 
the present day. Itis.a pity that Linnewus did not adopt the genus, with Miss 
Colden’s name, which is better than Salisbury’s Coptis. “ This young lady merits 
Plants in your method: she uses only English terms. Her father has a plant called 
after him Coldenia; su pose you should call this [alluding to a new genus of 
which he added the characters] Coldenella, or any other name that might distin- 
guish her among your enera.”’—Ellis, letter to Linneus, l. c. 
Who published it in the Ephemerides Acad. Nature Curiosorum for 1748; but in 
~ mean time most of the genera had been already published, with other names, 
by Linneus or Gronovius.. Among Mitchell’s new genera was one which he 
Called Chamedaphne : this Linneus referred to Lonicera, but the elder (Bernard) 
* 
