320 Scientific Intelligence. 



done excellent service — bibliographical and critical — by looking 

 up all the extant materials of the various genera and species pub- 

 lished, during a series of years, by the venerable Dr. Albert 

 Kellogg in the several volumes of the Proceedings of the Califor- 

 nian Academy, as well as in some out-of-the-way and quite unsci- 

 entific and ephemeral journals or newspapers, — comparing such 

 specimens as could be found with the neat drawings which Dr. 

 Kellogg delighted to make. These drawings are very much 

 better than the rude reproductions of them which were given in 

 the Proceedings, are more numerous, and are generally more 

 helpful than the descriptions in the work of determination. The 

 labor of looking up these scattered publications and of digesting 

 the bibliography must have been very considerable. But Mrs. 

 Curran, with what help she could obtain, has brought them all 

 together in 23 pages of the Bulletin, with the needful references, 

 appending the synonymous name, where there is any known to her. 

 Botanists who have to do with this troublesome matter must 

 heartily thank Mrs. Curran for this conscientious piece of work. 

 Without this exemplification some botanists might have found it 

 difficult to believe that Dr. Kellogg's Linicm trisepaliim is Helian- 

 themum scoparium, his Ludwigia scabriuscula the Ammannia 

 latifolia, his Gnap>halium Nevadense the Antennaria dioica, his 

 Egletes Californieus the common JBahia lanata, alias Eriophyl- 

 lum ccespitosum, and his Heterocodon minimum the Alchemilla 

 arvensis, not " Sjiecidaria biflora.''' 1 Also, that the new genera 

 Melarhiza, Partheniopsis, lesser antherum, and Hanapalus, are 

 founded respectively upon the Wyethia helenioides, Venegazia, 

 Frasera sp>eciosa, and Herpestis rotundifolia. It is helpful, also, 

 to have in the Bulletin copies of the dozen plates, the greater part 

 colored and of new Lower Californian plants, long ago prepared 

 for the Hesperean, but we believe not published. If they did 

 appear, along with the descriptions, in this " monthly magazine 

 published in San Francisco in earlier years," it is unlikely that the 

 botanical world knew or could have known anything of them. 

 And the same must be said of "the columns of the San Francisco 

 Rural Press," — hardly a scientific vehicle. 



In thus noticing, as it comes in our way, the botanical work of 

 ' a scientific pioneer on the Pacific coast, we should not withhold 

 our tribute of respect and admiration for this zealous, wholly dis- 

 interested, and simple-hearted lover of nature, who merely wished 

 to do what he could for the advancement of our knowledge of the 

 Californian flora, under conditions — such as the want of books 

 and collections — which would not improperly have kept back 

 almost any other equally ardent naturalist. 



The ample remainder of the third number and the whole of the 

 recent issue of the fourth consists of " Studies in the Botany of 

 California and parts adjacent," by Edward Lee Greene. They 

 show a quickness quite equal to the author's well known quickness 

 and acuteness in observation. Besides the interesting new mate- 

 rial here elaborated — much of it gathered in an enterprising expe- 



