278 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [OCTOBER 
yield good returns to future explorers. When fully known, 
the southern California flora will probably contain not less than 
2,500 species. 
THE CRYPTOGAMIC FLORA. 
In this sketch only the Spermatophyta and Pteridophyta 
have been considered; but below the ferns and their allies lie a 
series of plants perhaps more numerous than those above them. 
The relations of these plants, however, to the problems of the 
life-areas and geographical derivations of a flora is less definite, 
or at least less understood, than that of the higher groups. 
Consequently a consideration of them may be omitted in the 
investigation of these questions, with confidence that a fuller 
knowledge is not likely to require a reconsideration of the results 
arrived at. 
The information which has been accumulated concerning the 
representation of these lower plants in southern California is 
very incomplete. It is almost wholly the result of the labors 
of two or three students, extended over a short period of time. 
The pioneer resident investigator of these, as of the higher 
plants of the region, was Mr. Daniel Cleveland. In the lower 
groups he confined his attention to the marine algae of San 
Diego, and in 1885 published a list of 147 species. Harkness 
and Moore in their Catalogue of Pacific coast fungi (1880) knew — 
of but seven species from the southern counties. More recently 
Dr. H. E. Hasse has devoted much study to the lichens, the 
results of which he has made known in several contributions to 
botanical journals, and by a Catalogue of the lichens of southern Calt- 
fornia, published in 1898. In this are enumerated 304 species, 
the largest genera being Lecidea, with 65 species, and Lecanora, 
with 73. 
Beyond this almost all that is known of the lower plants of 
southern California is due to Professor A. J. McClatchie, who 
in his Seedless plants of southern California (1897) laid a broad 
foundation for future building. A thousand species are cata- 
logued; the lichens are contributed by Dr. Hasse, but the other 
orders are treated by Professor McClatchie, and are based 
mostly on his own collections. The Protophyta number 84 
