498 Progress of American Carcinology in 1879. [July, 
in waste ground; in old sheep and cattle corrals it is especially 
luxuriant, and grows sometimes so thick and strong that even a 
horse has difficulty in forcing his way through it. It closely 
resembles M. rotundifolia L. 
Several genera of Onagraceze are abundant in species and 
specimens, CEnothcera and Godetia being the most abundant. A 
small plant belonging to this order, Clarkia elegans Dougl., is 
found in shady cafions, and is remarkable for its queer-shaped, 
handsome, purple flowers, and is often cultivated. The Zaus- 
chneria californica Presl., has bright red flowers, and adorns dry 
banks and hills in the summer. Jsomeris arborea Nutt., one of 
the Capparidacee, is a small shrub with yellow flowers and 
inflated pods, and is very common near San Diego, flowering in 
November. A species of Hydrocotyle is very common in slow- 
flowing streams, and its circular crenated leaves seem to float on 
the water, and amongst them are thousands of specimens of 
Azolla americana, covering the surface of the water with its green 
mantle for considerable spaces. 
I have confined my attention in this article almost entirely to 
the herbs and shrubs, and have by no means exhausted the list 
of them. Species are very numerous in Southern California, and 
I may, another time, have something to say in regard to the trees 
and larger vegetation generally of the country. 
70; 
PROGRESS OF AMERICAN CARCINOLOGY IN 1879. 
BY J. S. KINGSLEY. 
MERICAN science, when compared with that of Europe, 
does not present a very creditable appearance. In the physi- 
cal sciences almost every country of the old world is far ahead of 
the United States. With geology it is about the same, while in 
biology, American work, with a few conspicuous exceptions, has 
not surpassed a low state of mediocrity. The pages of the 
numerous scientific journals are filled with descriptions of new 
species, faunal lists and even worse nonsense, while anatomical and 
embryological papers are few and far between, and even then the 
majority of them are fragmentary and abound in errors of obser- 
vation. In the philosophy of biology, America has done almost 
nothing. It is not the place in an article of this series, to insti- 
