626 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4th Ser. 



offered to us and to be able through the generosity of the patrons and 

 friends of the Academy to secure this collection for our herbarium, 

 which thus becomes the greatest cosmopolitan collection on the Pacific 

 Coast and west of the Mississippi. 



Professor Prager's account tells the history and importance of the 

 collection and follows in translation : 



"The herbarium was founded in 1878 through original collections in 

 Germany, the Alps, and Northern Italy. Its first important addition came 

 through the purchase of Dr. Hampe's herbarium, which I bought in 1886 

 after his death at a rather high price. It contained besides German and 

 Adriatic plants, a great rarity in the authentic collections of Ecklon and 

 Zeyer in the Cape Region of Southern Africa in 1843 and 1844, containing 

 about 1,200 species, most of which were until then unknown and on 

 which the foundation for the Flora of South Africa was made. There 

 were only a few sets of these collections and they are priceless, impos- 

 sible now to obtain. From 1886-1892 the herbarium was enlarged by my 

 own collections and the purchase of two important scientific herbariums, 

 namely that of Professor Stengler and that of Professor Schlechtendahl. 

 The last is most valuable as it contains the collections of several impor- 

 tant botanical expeditions, namely, Willkom, Spain ; Fischer & Meyer, 

 Mediterranean countries and Algeria; Spreuner, first scientific expedition 

 to Greece and Asia Minor, containing many plants until then unknown; 

 Schimper, the great Arabia, Sinai, Egypt Expedition of 1825-26. This 

 expedition traveled through a country botanically very little known, and 

 was made possible through the unusual kindness of the Turkish rulers, 

 never before extended to a Christian expedition. At that time no 

 travelers came to Arabia, as the country was strictly barred against all 

 unbelievers. This collection is complete in the Prager Herbarium and 

 is priceless now and impossible to obtain. A new period of growth 

 came to the Prager Herbarium through a new correspondent, Dr. Von 

 Betche, the recently deceased Assistant Director of the Botanical Insti- 

 tute at Sydney, Australia. During ten years this authority on the flora 

 of Australia sent me one of the largest collections of Australian plants 

 and so many duplicates that I was able to secure other collections by 

 exchange. I exchanged with the University Greifswald, Upsala (Nor- 

 wegian and Lapland plants), Agram (Roumanian plants collected by 

 Von Iriwaldsky), Prague (Carpathian), Wurtzburg, even with St. Peters- 

 burg from where I obtained the collection of the Central Asiatic expedi- 

 tion to Saisang-Nor, Hohenacker's Caucasian expedition, the Kamchatka 

 and North Siberian expedition of Pallas. From Mr. Forsyth, now 

 Director of the Botanical Gardens at Adelaide, Australia, then at Pt. 

 Darwin, I obtained 400 species of the very little known flora of Northern 

 Australia and a large amount of exchange material, These exchange 

 specimens enabled me to acquire two important collections, namely, Dr. 

 Schaffner's Mexican collection, 300 species, and Baron von Eggers' West 

 Indian collection, 300 species. From Dr. von Betche I obtained, further- 

 more, his fine collection of Samoan ferns, collected chiefly on Upola 



