1909] BRIEFER ARTICLES 463 
Astoria, Portland, and Ft. Vancouver. In September he was among the 
mountains of the upper Columbia River, but by October he had returned 
to the Sierra Nevada of California. It does not appear when he finally 
left California, but by the middle of December 1870 he was again in 
Panama. ‘The first two months of the new year were devoted to revisiting 
Columbia, after which RoEzz returned to Europe. 
It appears from this account that the only opportunity which RoEzi 
had of procuring seeds of Washingtonia was during his visit to San Diego, 
in December 1869. The notes, however, contain no reference to this palm. 
But a visit to any of its desert habitats would certainly have been an experi- 
ence too notable to have failed of record. Nor is it probable that his visit 
to San Diego, so short and so diligently occupied in collecting, could have 
afforded time for the difficult journey to the desert. The vague and con- 
fused habitat assigned to the palm is itself a sufficient evidence that the 
collector, from whom the information must have come, could never have 
visited a native grove. It is safe to conclude that the seed he sent to Europe 
came from some of the older cultivated trees at San Diego, and that his 
pardonable ignorance of local geography prevented him from correctly 
understanding what was told him of the location of the indigenous groves. 
—S. B. Parisn, San Bernardino, Cal. 
~ LONGEVITY OF SEEDS 
In the Botanica, GazeTTE for January 1909, p. 69, CROCKER, in 
referring to my paper on this subject, concludes with the remark: “I 
believe I am doing the author no injustice when I say that it is impossible 
to tell from his paper in how far it is a contribution and in how far a com- 
pilation.”” May I say that the utmost care was taken to quote the authority 
for every record or fact that was not original, and that I am unable to find 
a single case in which this was not done. If any such omission occurs it is 
a purely accidental one, and I am prepared to offer both a public and a 
Private apology to any author whose name is omitted as the authority 
for a record for which he is responsible. Naturally, however, if on repeating 
a test or experiment a more or less divergent result is obtained, the original 
authority can hardly be given for the changed statement of fact, which in 
many cases directly negatives the original record. The latter, however, Is 
given in all cases with the author’s name appended, so that it is difficult to 
see any foundation for CROcKER’S criticism.—ALrreD J. Ewart, Uni- 
versity of Melbourne. 
