1886. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 341 
gives expression to these activities. That the Gazerre has been better than its 
promise is the record of the year just closing, and as we clear our decks for 
another year it is with the determination to surpass anything we have yet done. 
With this promise to our friends we wish them a happy and successful new year. 
THERE Is some feeling among amie botanists that their labors are not 
fully recognized in Europe, being passed by when credit is really due them. 
nts to partial remedy within the control of each author. We refer to the 
desibades of separately printed copies of important articles contained in 
journals and society publications. We venture to say that the number of cop- 
ies now sent by most authors to German and other foreign investigators is very 
small and wholly inadequate. A satisfactory distribution would require that 
a copy of every important research should be sent to other workers in the 
same line, to the prominent botanical vero and to the chief libraries. 
If it can also be placed on sale, so much the better. If authors will take this 
small trouble and expense, the saith and recognition of American botany 
abroad will be advantageously improeve?. 
OPEN LETTERS. 
Orientation of Cassia leaflets 
The region abont me is beta): 7 a d with a pide of the two species 
C. Cham 
of Cassia, C. nictitans an ista. I notice this summer what I never 
appen ave observed ro Sag a afternoon especially, all the 
leaflets are so dis resent their surfaces to the declining s 
thousands of specimens I can find no exception This presentation of neces 
sity gives something of . north and south trend to nie edge of the leaflets, so 
here we have c lants of a certain kin 
ss p 
Brown University, Pronidenes 
Gigiakorlasth perfoliatum. 
n August last I collected a stout specimen of thi 
each node. 
In is plant, nearly four feet 
high, having a whorl of three leaves a 
he leaves of each whorl 
were united around iy stem much as in ibe usual form, except that there was 
a superfluity of tissue at the points of cohesion, thus makit e ba th 
leaves crispa J. FRanKirn Cours, 
Providene : ERE 
CURRENT LITERATURE. 
Life mages of Pl By Professor D. McAlpine. pp. 296. Illustrated. 
wan set Mik Lsetey & Co., London. 1886. sq. 12°. 
ut the latest alg of botany in such a 
ia isa anita attempt to pu 
popular way goes sant Nor person can understan Such attempts 
can not be too Pal be mended, for they are important and difficult. poe 
ed with these facts the cha 
the intelligent ponetae at sind becomes acquainted 
for foundations for otiginal investigation multiply, but the difficulty toca in in 
