80 THE WEST AMEBICAN SCIENTIST. 



a white and slender tuft. The plication of the leaves in vernation 

 makes the sharp extremities lie on the entire portion of the leaf 

 blade which occasions circular undulations of elegant appearance 

 on the expansion of the leaf. 



A tree of such great beauty promises remarkable decorative 

 effects on our Mediterranean coast where it will equal the W. fil- 

 ifera in vigor and hardiness and surpass it in elegance. 

 Our readers will take note that it is well to discard definitely the 

 inaccurate names of Pritchrrdia filifera, Brahea filimeatosa or fil- 

 ifera for the first discovered species of this genus. The plant be- 

 longing decidedly to the new genus Washingtonia of which I will 

 here give a description. [Then follows a description of the genus 

 compiled frsm Wendland, Sereno Watson and other authorities. 



Te.] 



*************** 



Of the history and country of W. robusta but little is kn^wn. 

 Mr. Roetzl is said to have gathered the fresh seed in Arizona (one 

 of the southern of the United States of America) and sent them to 

 Europe. On the other hand, Messrs. Dammann et cie of Portici, 

 near Naples, have lately received and distributed large quantities 

 of seed of this species but say they know little about its native 

 country except that the tree grows on.'^he Sacramento river in 

 California. " . Ed. Andre. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



Look over your collections and see if you have Carpenter's Coe- 

 cum Cooperi,— if so, label it C. Calif ornica, Dall, n. sp., as the 

 name C. Cooperi was preoccupied by S. Smith. 



Mr. Bryant Walker, 18 Moffat Building, Detroit, Mich., asks in 

 behalf of John W. Taylor, of Leeds, England (editor of the Jour- 

 nal of conchology), full and detailed information in regard to the 

 distribution throughout the United States and Canada, of all the 

 land and fresh-water mollusks common to Great Britain and N. 

 America; including such as are allied, if not identical, with corre- 

 sponding British forms. 



Letters to the editor of 'Science' should be addressed in the 

 future to 47 Lafayette place, New York, as the place of publicaton 

 of that journal has been removed from Cambridge. 



There has just been added to the unique collection of woods in 

 the American museum of natural history in New York city three 

 specimens of rare trees and more are on the way. One is of Picea 

 Breweriana, a spruce found near the summit of the Siskiyou ran- 



