228 botanical gazette. [September, 



Mexico, he proved himself a worthy successor to Sessd, Mocifio, Cervantes, 

 Humboldt, Bonpland, La Lave, and Lexarza. Braving the hardships and 

 exposures of travel in wild and unhealthy regions, undaunted by ship- 

 wreck, robbed and wounded by brigands, involved in the strife and wars 

 of contending factions, he pursued for thirty years the work of collecting 

 plants for the herbaria and gardens of Europe and America. Captivated 

 by the novelties of a tropical flora, his earliest and latest field of research, 

 and apparently his favorite one, was the southeasternmost part of Mexico, 

 comprising the states of Tabasco and Chiapas. But from 1840 to 1855 he 

 devoted himself to the interior and other states, crossing the Gran 

 Cordillera three times from ocean to ocean, traversing the Gran Mesa, 

 and ascending the volcanoes of Colima, Jorullo and Cempoaltepec. The 

 number of plants that he has distributed to herbaria or introduced into 

 cultivation must be immense. Their citations abound in the literature 

 of tropical North American botany. M. DeCandolle refers to a series of 

 exsiccatse in the possession of Cardinal Haynald, at Colocza, Hungary. 



A list is given by Prof. Rovirosa of many notable new species, with 

 which the name of Ghiesbrecht is connected; and to this list might well 

 have been added the remarkable arboreous Scrophulariacea,Ghiesbrechtia 

 grandi flora, which served Dr. Gray as occasion to dedicate a new genus to 

 its discoverer. This tree, known in herbaria only by the originals of 

 description collected in Chiapas, has recently been met with by Baron 



von Tiirckheim at Santa Rosa, in the Verapaz highlands of Guatemala. 



The memoir concludes with a pleasing account of its subject in his 

 eightieth year at his home in San Christobal Las Casas, where he has 

 resided since 1862: "Retired from the wandering life that he pursued 

 for so many years of the middle part of this century, but still vigorous 

 and active, he occupies himself chiefly wfth horticulture and with doing 

 good to the most helpless class of the community, that he has adopted as 

 his own. His medical services are ever at the call of those that suffer; 

 his moderate means suffice, nevertheless, to bring bread to the door of 

 many a needy one ; all his actions reveal to those around him, that he, 

 who has read the great book of Nature, has learned to know the duties 

 that bind him to his fellow men. Proud, then, are the people of Chiapas 

 to have him dwell in their capital, and to call him their countryman, as 

 all of us should do who love the advance of science in Mexico." 



The example of such a life is not without influence, and to it in some 

 measure do we doubtless owe the botanical collections now being made 

 by Prof. Rovirosa in these localities.— John Donnell Smith. 



■ 



Indian snuff.— In Lloyd's Drugs and Medicines of North America sev- 

 eral species of Anemone are described and their properties discussed, 

 but the species mentioned below are not included. It is to be greatly 

 deplored that the welcome quarterly parts of that work are not now is- 

 sued. 



In the Northwest the Indians are familiar with valuable remedies for 



