


1891.] Botany. 1013 
hoped that this herbarium will come into the possession of some insti- 
tution which will make it accessible to the|botanistsof the country. - 
Palmer’s Mexican and Arizona Plants of 1890.—The re 
collected by Dr. Edward Palmer during the year 1890 have been 
determined by Mr. J. N. Rose, of the National Herbarium, whose 
report has just appeared as one of the ‘‘ Contributions.” A good many 
new species are described, one of the most interesting of which is 
Echinopepon cirrhopedunculatus, a near relative of our familiar Zchino- 
cystis lobata. In the new species the female flowers are borne upon 
slender, coiled, tendril-like peduncles, from three to six inches in 
length. Apparently we have here a hint as to the morphology of 
the tendrils of the Cucurbitacez. This would indicate their cauline 
nature. 
Three Months of Elementary Botany. dS setting the stu- 
dent at work collecting green-slimes, pond-scums, smuts, leaf-spots, 
toad-stools, lichens, scouring rushes, together with flowering plants, 
many kinds of vegetable forms are presented to him, and their resem- 
blances or differences readily impress themselves upon his mind. 
This discursive collecting is not so symmetrical or simple as the 
ordinary selective method which rejects anything. without a flower at 
least half an inch in diameter. It is calculated however, to gi 
more just idea of the plant world as a whole. ith „reference to 
structure, much more can be seen with the unaided eye than teachers 
suppose. For example, a thin slice of squash stem held up to the 
light shows clearly enough the subepidermal tissues and the bicol- 
lateral structure of the vascular bundles. A vast amount of dissecting 
and anatomical work can be done with pins and pocket-knives. If 
rightly used, the eye is a eee microscope, but one must use it 
with the “fine adjustment.’’ Even things which it is fashionable to 
slight may become productive under proper handling. Phyllotaxy— 
that much abused and ridiculed section of anatomy and physiology— 
presents admirable fields of study in the mechanics of development. 
lose examination of the shoot-epidermis opens up almost every divi- 
sion of physiology. For the epidermal system is specialized for 
defence, nutrition, growth, irritability, attraction—sometimes — of 
insects, and, with its color, texture, thickness, extent, perforations, 
projections, secretions, is a most convenient and instructive object of 
attention in a three-months’ course of botany. In connection with 
such work in morphology and physiology, the structure of flowers, the 
physiology of Apa the principles of classification may be 



