14 



lnunication by railroads and steamboats, as the centre of my opera- 

 tions for this year's survey. In making an extensive botanical tour 

 of long duration, it is indispensably necessary, in order to preserve 

 the plants collected, to select s >me convenient place as headquarters, 

 where the collector has a room, and where he is uninterrupted in 

 his tedious arrangements by idle spectators, to enable him to deter- 

 mine plants which require but little research, apply the requisite 

 pressure to dry them, and take them out from the press for several 

 consecutive days, change the drying paper, and when sufficiently dry 

 to place them in new sheets, where they permanently remain until 

 they are finally disposed of and classified. This operation is far 

 more important than the collection of plants, and requires much 

 more time as well as patience, and more constant attention. In 

 preparing an herbarium of botanical and scientific value, it is neces- 

 sary to collect, at the same time, a great number of specimens of the 

 same species, and to select from those the best developed, and those 

 that show best all the parts of the plant. A considerable number of 

 specimens of the same species must be dried, as the herbarium 

 should contain from four to six specimens of each species, and as 

 some of those, which are subjected to pressure, will prove worthless, 

 it is apparent what amount of labor it i-equires even to dry fifty 

 specimens, which will fill from two to three hundred drying papers. 

 Fifty specimens might be collected in certain localities in a few 

 days, where no collection of the same kind has ever been made, but 

 it would require several weeks to make a final disposal of them. I 

 make these explanatory remarks, because th^y refer to facts, which 

 no one but a professional botanist could know; otherwise there 

 might be some misapprehension with regard to my movements, as I 

 was only able to visit seven or eight parishes during two months 

 traveling, and only a small portion of these parishes. 



On my arrival in New Orleans I immediately went to work to 

 examine the botanical prospects of the surrounding country, and as 

 it was entirely a new field, I found many interesting specimens, 

 some few of which I met with no where else in my travels. I made 

 several excursions to City Park, Bayou St, John, Carrollton, Algiers 

 and Lake Pontchartrain. 



In New Orleans and its vicinity I found the high-stemmed Rud- 

 beckia (Rudbeckia maxima) and the Late-blooming Parthenium 

 (Parthenium hysterophorus), and near Lake Pontchartrain grows a 



