24:2 ^urth Amenean Cypcraccce^ 
teentli part of the pluBnogamous vegetation. The list in ihe 
present monograph is increased to 326, but the proportion which 
they bear to the whole number of phasnogamous plants remains- 
about the same, owing to the great additions which have heen 
made to our Flora within a few years past. 
It afibrds me great pleasure to record the labours of some 
of our own botanists in this field. The late excellent Mr. 
Elliott, in his work modestly entitled A Sketch of the Botany 
of South Carolina and Georgia (1817 — 1824,) accurately de- 
scribed a great number of Cyperaceas, among which are many 
new species. Prof. Dewey's Caricography, published in Silli- 
man's Journal, (vol. 7 — 30, 1824 — 1836,) is an exceedingly 
valuable account of our native species of Carex. The fii'st 
volume of the Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History con- 
tains an Analytical table of North American Carices, Communi- 
cated in 1823 by the late lamented Dr. L. D. von Schweinitz, in 
which the essential characters of the species known at that time are 
given in a perspicuous manner, and several new species are in- 
dicated, most of which have been subsequently confirmed. The 
Monograph of North American Carices by Mr. Schweinitz and 
myself, was pubHshed the following year in the second volume 
of the same work. The monograph of North American 
Rhynchosporee, published in the present volume of the Annals 
of the Lyceum, and the volumes of North American Gramineae 
and Cyperaceae by my esteemed friend Dr. Gray, are most 
valuable contributions to the Flora of this country. In the dif- 
ficult genus Rhynchospora the author has doubled the list of in- 
digenous species before recorded, and has described them with 
such clearness that hereafter their determination will be compa- 
ratively easy. 
A paper, entitled "Cyperaceae novae," &c. by Dr. C. A. 
Meyer, (published in the Memoires presentes a I'acad. St. Pe- 
tersb. 1830) contains excellent descriptions and figures of seve- 
ral Cyperaceae, mostly from Russian America, many of which 
have been identified by means of a suite of specimens from 
Sitcha and Unalaschka, communicated by M. Bongard of the 
St. Petersburgh Imperial Academy. 
