GEORGE EDWARD POST 1 97 



giant umbellifers with large, delicate and intri- 

 cately cut leaves — all furnished their toll to his 

 omnivorous plant-presses. In his Flora he de- 

 scribes no less than fifteen species of mullein, and 

 eight of Astragalus, new to science. 



Once, in the spring of 1890, he made a botan- 

 ical trip to Palmyra. Growing on the rocky 

 crags of Jebel Bilas, in the Syrian Desert, he 

 found the basal leaves of two large umbelliferous 

 plants which he had never seen before. These 

 leaves he carefully collected, as they were the 

 only part of the plants developed. From his 

 knowledge of the Umbelliferae he was able not 

 merely to recognize the genus to which the plants 

 belonged, but to construct a detailed description 

 of the probable appearance of the mature plants. 

 On a second trip to Palmyra, in the summer, he 

 found and collected mature specimens closely 

 corresponding to the descriptions he had con- 

 structed, and which proved to be two species new 

 to science, named by him Ferula Bilasi and Fe- 

 rula Barbeyi. 



Collecting was but a part of the labor. All 

 the specimens were studied and arranged by him- 

 self, the list of plants collected on each journey, 

 with habitat and date of each species, together 

 with a full description in Latin of the species 

 and varieties new to science, being published in 

 a series of ten monographs entitled Plantae Pos- 



