1895.] Current Literature. 121 
tration, and in his many misfortunes. With no training, no contact 
with scientific men, and a mind wonderfully self-opinionated, his ca- 
prodigious activity that was possible under so many disadvantages. 
Opinions as to the value of Rafinesque’s work will always differ, but 
he is none the less a most interesting figure, and, with all his excur- 
sions into other fields, was first and foremost a botanist. 
Minor Notices. 
ContripuTion No. 9, from the U. S. National Herbarium, completes 
the first volume of this series, and is a report by the assistant botanist, 
Dr. J. N. Rose, upon a collection of plants made in Sonora and Colima 
in 1890 and 18691, by Dr. Edward Palmer. The report has been long 
delayed in publication, and it shows what was expected from such 
a region as Mexico, and such a collector as Dr. Palmer. As the col- 
lections of Pringle, Palmer and others increase in number we begin to 
appreciate the vast and varied flora which lies just to the south of us, 
a flora which we will presently have to include in our North Ameri- 
can treatises. In the present instance Dr. Rose has wisely sought the 
aid of recent specialists in various more critical groups. In addition 
to some very usetul illustrations printed in the text, such as leaves, 
Pods, etc., there are twelve Meisel plates, besides the frontispiece. 
Seventy new species are described, but many other numbers are de- 
Scribed without names, a practice which has no advantage and serves 
to make trouble in reference lists. One must keep track of these de- 
scribed and unnamed forms, but there is nothing by which to distin- 
guish them and they are easily lost sight of. The report is a valuable 
contribution to our knowledge of the Mexican flora, and contains no 
less than sixty additions to Hemsley’s list, besides the seventy new 
species, 
A CONTRIBUTION to our literature of Arctic plants has just been dis- 
tributed as a separate from Engler’s Bot. Jahrb. 19: 4. 1894. It con- 
Chilcat region in S. E. Alaska, the other with the region of the 
“Tchuktchies,” a people inhabiting the easternmost peninsula of Si- 
beria Opposite Alaska. The collections were made by the Krause 
9—Vol. XX.—No, 3 
