1080 The American Naturalist. [Novemb er 
A thorough revision and rearrangement of the natural orders has 
made some progress, already including the Graminex, Composite, 
Caryophyllacez, Cupulifere, Filices, and several others. During the 
year the collection of microscopic preparations, numbering 4,429 
specimens, made by Professor DeBary, was acquired by purchase. 
Many valuable collections of varying sizes were presented, and as 
many more were purchased.—CHARLES E. BEssEY. 
_ The Word “ Herbarium.” —A writer in the Pharmaceutical 
Journal, Mr. G. C. Druce (quoted in the September Journal of Botany), 
says: “The origin of the word herbarium, as applied to a dried col- 
lection, is by no means certain. It is true we frequently meet with 
the name in the older writers, but to them it meant a book about 
plants, and generally an illustrated book." He then, after a general 
discussion, describes an old parcel of plants at Oxford which he ex- 
amined recently. The specimens were in a good state of preservation, 
and proved to have been prepared by one Gregory of Reggio in the 
year 1606. This collection was labeled on the back ** Herbarum 
Diversarum Naturalium." This the writer thinks is the earliest use of 
the word in this sense. Gregory of Reggio **was noted for his 
botanical knowledge.” 
The Microspores of Sphagnum.—In a preliminary communi- 
cation in a recent number of the Botanisches Centralblatt, S. Nawas- 
chin, of Moscow, attempts to answer the question as to the nature of 
the so-called ** microspores "' of Sphagnum. Having good material 
of S. squarrosum in various stages of development, he found that the 
microspores appear to develop from fungus-hyphe, instead of from the 
well-known spore-mother-cells of the Bryophyta. Fungus-hyphz were 
found in other portions of the Sphagnum plant-body, also adding to 
the probability of the fungus nature of the microspores. The investi- 
gator ventures the surmise that these puzzling spores are not Sphagnum 
spores at all, but those of Ustilaginez, of the genus Tilletia. To it he 
gives the provisional name of 7: sphagni. 
The Species of Cotton.—Schumann, in his elaboration of the 
Malvacez for Engler and Prantl’s ** Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien,”’ 
recognizes three species of Gossypium (cotton), viz.: 
G. barbadense L., with the “cotton ” easily separated from the seeds, 
which are then naked. 
G. arboreum L., “ cotton ” separated with difficulty, seeds with a 
persistent coat of short filaments, leaf-points oblong, flower purple-red. 
