1947] 



MERRILL, DESVAUX'S JOURNAL DE BOTANIQUE 



249 



Desvaux's Journal de Botanique as they were issued. There would 

 therefore appear to be no cause for doubting the correctness of the dates 

 of issue as originally published, for Desvaux apparently was able to live 

 up to his plan of issuing a number each month and in the first eight days of 

 each month; in fact some of the numbers actually were printed in the 

 month preceding the one indicated on the fascicle covers. 



The record as to the dates of issue of the "second séries" is unfortunately 

 not so clear and doubts have been cast on the correctness of some of them. 

 It was Desvaux's original plan to start an entirely new periodical in 1810 

 as noted above, but apparently the times were not propitious. Three 

 years later he did initiate another sériai but used the same gênerai title 

 that he had for the first attempt, i.e., Journal de Botanique. Of this new 

 sériai four volumes were issued, the third volume apparently never 

 completed. 



Fernald, Rhodora 20: 227. 1927, in his discussion of Dendrium Desv. 

 and Loiseleitria Desv., for which he correctly accepts the date of publica- 

 tion as 1813, says: "Nevertheless, European bibliographers apparently 

 have récent information (its source as yet unknown to me) that the part 

 of vol. iii, or Ser. 2:1, containing Dendrium (p. 36) and Loiselcuria (p. 

 35) was not issued until 1814." However, No. 1, pp. 1-48. aïthough 

 neither the number nor the pagination is indicated, is clearly the part 

 reviewed in the Jour. Gén. Litt. France 16: 30. 1813, as determinable from 

 the titles of the papers cited. This would be the January number for the 

 year 1813 and the entry proves that number one of this new Desvaux 

 Journal de Botanique was actually issued in 1813 and not delayed until 

 1814. My attention had been called to an item in Bertolini's Flora 

 Italica 2: 377. 1835, in his discussion of Primula suaveolens R. & S. in 

 which he refers to an entry in Desvaux's Journal de Botanique "tom. 4. 

 p. 76. anno 1813," which seemed to confuse the issue. Checking the 

 référence, however, indicated an error on Bertolini's part, for the Primula 

 suaveolens entry is in Desvaux's Jour. Bot. 2: 76. 1813, not in volume 

 four, again confirmation that volume two was issued in 1813. 



As Fernald notes, the signatures (every 16 pages) are dated at the 

 bottom of the first page of each beginning with p. 49, February, 1813, and 

 continuing to June, 1813 (p. 273). It is not claimed that thèse monthly 

 dates are actually the dates of issue, but this might well be the case. 

 This System of dating the signatures was continued through volume 2, p. 

 1, July, 1813, to p. 257, December, 1813, but was abandoned in volumes 

 three and four. Volumes three and four are dated 1814. On page 285 

 of volume four Desvaux says: u Les trois derniers Numéros du 3.'" 

 volume pour 1814, paraîtront avec les premiers Numéros du 5.'" volume 

 commençant 1' année 1815." This explains, in part, the incomplète volume 

 three but throws no light on the difficultés that the editor may have had 

 with the printers. In ail but one of the sets of this periodical that 1 have 

 seen, volume three closes abruptly with page 192, and I judge that it was 



