100 
age, went to Vienna to complete his medical education. He was 
already an enthusiastic student of natural history, especially 
botany, and attracted the attention of the emporor, who com- 
missioned him to visit the West Indies for the purpose of collect- 
ing materials for the imperial cabinet. With several assistants, 
he spent about four years (1755-59) in carrying out this task, 
collecting a large amount of material, especially plants, both 
living and dried. The year following his return he published a 
brief enumeration of the plants observed which were either new 
or otherwise noteworthy; this was followed in 1763 by a folio 
work in which were given full descriptions of the plants men- 
tioned in the earlier enumeration, and copper-plate illustrations 
of many of them. 
Our recent acquisition is a later edition of the last-mentioned 
work, issued without title-page date in 1780 or 1781, in which 
the text has been entirely revised, and instead of 183 copper- 
plates there are 264 colored plates copied entirely by hand from 
the author’s original paintings, The work is beautifully done, 
and a number of species are illustrated which did not appear 
on the plates of the first edition. 
Of this work with hand-painted plates the edition is stated by 
different authorities as 12 or 18 copies, and of course it has always 
been extremely scarce. A copy was sold in 1818 for about 
$400.00, and probably not more than two or three have changed 
hands since that time; it is not unlikely that ours was the last 
to remain in private hands. There are copies in Vienna, Berlin, 
Gottingen, Dresden, the library of the British Museum, and the 
Library of Congress at Washington; but there is none at Kew, 
and it is possible that ours is the only copy in a strictly botanical 
library. 
Joun H. Barnuart. 
SPRING AND SUMMER FLOWER SHOWS. 
The floral exhibitions of The Horticultural Society of New 
York, given in codperation with the Garden, were inaugurated 
with the exhibition of May eleventh and twelfth. A special 
