188 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [July, 
T believe in the liberal use of poison, I have long been convinved that it is 
hopeless to try and prevent the ingress of insects by this means alone, and shall 
model my herbarium cases after the new ones devoted to Composite in the 
Gray Herbarium, described in the June number. Such a case is as nearly 
dust-proof as can be expected, and is tight enough so that a cup of chloroform, 
set on one of the shelves occasionally, will destroy any insects that may be at 
work. A suggestion of Prof. Brewer to concave the fronts of the shelves near 
the right-hand end, for lifting out the sheets, and to have the shelves one inch 
shorter than the sheet, at the back, to allow dust to fall to the bottom, obviating 
the necessity of brushing out each shelf, is worth acting upon.— WILLIAM TRE- 
Corydalis aurea and its allies. —In former years Dr. Engelmann studied 
this group attentively, and gave me various notes and sketches; but hardly 
anything has been published except the few memoranda which I incorporated 
into the Manual. A careful study of the group now made has on the whole 
confirmed Dr. Englemann’s views, but has led to the admission of one species, 
which he had concluded to be a mere state of C. aurea, It will be seen beg 
the following notes that some points remain upon which further information is 
needed 
The species are conveniently arr anged in two groups, as follows: 
1. Hood or saccate tip of outer petals crestless, the back at most carinate: flowers gold- 
en yellow. 
C. aurea Willd. Commonly spreading and with slender pedicels: spur of 
corolla barely half the length of the body, somewhat decurved : capsules pend- 
ulous or spreading, terete, toruiose when dry: seeds turgid, obtuse at margin, 
- the shining surface 0 curely reticulated under a lens. 
Extends from Lower Canada to British Columbia and Oregon, north to 
lat 64°, southwestward to Texas, Arizona, and into adjacent arts of Mexico. 
into N. E. Asia or Japan. The piant of the Rocky Mountains and west- 
ward commonly has longer spurs. Only southward do we find the marked rae 
which Dr. Englemann was naturally disposed to separate as a species, but a 
length agreed to call : 
Var. occrpeNnTaxis Engelm. in Gray Man. 62. More erect and re 
stouter, often with thickened root which Engelmann took to be “ subperennial, 
but probably, like the species, only biennial: flowers rather larger and in 4 
stouter erect raceme, with spur almost as long as the body and commonly as- 
cending: capsules thicker, less torulose, mostly incurved-ascending on short 
spreading pedicels: seeds less turgid and margins acutish.—C. montana Engelm. 
1. ec. and Wood, Bot. 34. ; 
Fendler’s New Mexican plant was chiefly the original of this: but itis = 
ter represented by C. Wright’s no. 1309 from near El Paso, by specimens ve 
I myself collected there in the early spring of 1885, by Pringle’s no. 198 of the 
i i Aihona b 
same year from Chihuahna, by specimens ll Palmer in 
1865, b y in New Mexico, and by Hall & Harbour’s no, 31 from Colorado, 
which as been ref - curvisiliqua. These all approac org 
utt see 
t m to be » are shorter, and the seeds have the slight mark- 
ings of those of C. aurea. 
. C. curv: A Engelm.1l.c. Habit of the preceding variety, and with 
spiciform raceme of rather larger flowers (over half inch long), the spur as long 
