oe 
14 Notices of Huropean Herbaria. 
those required for the general herbarium are removed to that col- 
lection. The ancient herbarium of Vaillant forms the basis of 
the general collection: the specimens, which are all labelled by 
his own hand, are in excellent preservation, and among them 
plants derived from Cornuti or Dr. Sarrasin, may occasionally be 
met with. ‘This collection, augmented to many times its original 
extent, by the plants of Commerson, Dombey, Poiteau, Lesche- 
nault, &c., and by the duplicates from the special herbaria, proba- 
bly contains at this time thirty or forty thousand species. Of the 
separate herbaria, the most interesting to us, is that made in this 
country by the elder Michaux, from whose specimens and notes- 
the learned Richard prepared the Flora Boreali- Americana. 
Michaux himself, although an excellent and industrious collec- 
tor and observer, was by no means qualified for authorship; and 
it is to L. C. Richard that the sagacious observations, and the ele- 
gant, terse, and highly characteristic specific phrases of this work 
are entirely due. There is also the very complete Newfound- 
land collection of La Pylaie, comprising about 300 species, and a 
set of Berlandier’s Texan and Mexican plants, as well as numer- 
ous herbaria less directly connected with North American botany, 
which we have not room to enumerate. Here, however, we do 
not find the herbaria of several authors, which we should have 
expected. That of Lamarck, for instance, is in the possession of 
Prof. Roper at Rostock, on the shores of the Baltic; that of 
Poiret belongs to Moquin-T'andon of Toulouse; that of Bosc, to 
Prof. Moretti of Pavia; and the proper herbarium of the late Des- _ 
fontaines, which, however, still remains at Paris, now forms a 
part of the very large and valuable collections of Mr. Webb. 
The herbarium of Mr. Webb, although of. recent establishment, 
is only second to that of Baron Delessert; the two being far the 
largest private collections in France, and comprising not only 
many older herbaria, but also, as far as possible, full sets of the 
plants of recent collectors. 'The former contains many of Mi- 
chaux’s plants, (derived from the herbarium of Desfontaines,) a 
North American collection, sent by Nuttall to the late Mr. Mercier 
of Geneva, a full set of Drummond’s collections in the United 
States and Texas, &c. The latter also comprises many plants of 
Michaux, derived from Ventenat’s herbarium, complete sets of 
Drummond’s collections, &¢. But a more important, because 
original and perhaps complete, set of the plants of Michaux is 
