1907] PARISH— THE GENUS WASHINGTONIA 409 



Dr. C. C. Parry has recorded ('81) that he also became acquainted 

 with the desert palms in 1 849-1 850, while botanist of the Mexican 

 Boundary Sur\'ey. But in the introduction to the Botany oi the 

 boundary he made no mention of these notable trees, while enumerat- 

 ing so many of the remarkable plants of the Colorado Desert. Neither 

 do they find a place in the body of the volume; nor are they mentioned 

 by the botanists who reported upon the collections of the Pacific 

 Railroad Surveys. 



Not until 1 86 1 did they receive botanical recognition, and was an 



made to assign 



In 



Dr. J. G. Cooper pubhshed (Smithsonian Report for i860) the 

 names of certain trees "omitted, by an oversight, from a list of those 

 on the Mexican boundary" which had appeared in a preceding 



report 



Mart." Cooper 



Hayes 



and he notes their thready segments and prickly petioles, and states 



that the fruit is edible. 



The matter rested here for eleven years more, when the attention 



young 



leed reported to 

 t. At first they 

 were thought to belong to Brahea or to Prichardia, but in 1879 Dr. 



come 



Wendland 



ingtonia, 



gave the name Wash- 



a 



American 



m gardens as Brahea or Prichardia fiiiji 



THE GENERIC NAME 



It appears, however, that there had been some previous sugges- 

 tions as to the bestowal of the name of Washington upon certain 



' Probably not the Palm Springs of Blake's Report. Dr. Hayes accompanied as 

 assistant surgeon the government expedition which in 1858-59 sur\'eyed an emigrant 

 route from EI Paso to Fort Yuma. Later he made some botanical collections near 



uma 



may 



customary route at that time. This "Palm Springs" 

 viORY. There is a sketch of Dr. Hayes's life in Seeman's 



Botany 4:153. 



and 



