NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 
485 
1890.] 
Recorder , .... Charles Schaffer, M.D. 
Conservator , . . . John H. Redfield. 
The report of the Conservator, which is submitted as part of this 
report, shows a gratifying increase in the Herbarium—the number 
of determined species of flowering plants and ferns now exceeding 
30,000. 
Thomas Meehan, 
Vice-Director. 
Conservator's Report for 1890.—The Conservator respectfully 
submits the following Annual Report upon the condition and pro¬ 
gress of the Academy’s Herbarium:— 
During the past year large and valuable additions have been 
made to our collections, reminding us that the time has already 
arrived when we need larger apartments to provide suitable space 
for such accessions. The chief contributions have been of plants of 
the tropical regions of America, of which we are now enabled to 
display a creditable representation, constituting a nucleus for such 
future accretions as will in time render our Herbarium indispen¬ 
sable to the student of tlie floras of Mexico and South America. 
Prof. Rovirosa has continued his researches in the rich flora of 
the province of Tabasco, and has added three hundred species to his 
former gifts, a large number of them of great interest, and till now 
unrepresented in the collection. Mr. C. G. Pringle, noted for his long 
experience in collecting, and for the judgment and care manifested in 
the selection and preparation of his specimens, spent the season of 
1889 in the Mexican Province of Jalisco, and we have the result in 
a series of 335 species, a large proportion of which are new to us. 
Mr. T. S. Brandegee, of the California Academy of Natural 
Sciences, has sent us a collection made by him in 1889, in the 
peninsula of Lower California, a region hitherto so little known 
that more than half the species were new to us. The scientific ex¬ 
pedition sent out by the Academy in the early part of the year, 
under the guidance of Prof. Heilprin, though mainly devoted to 
other branches, did not neglect the flora of the regions which it 
traversed; and by the aid of Messrs. Stone and Baker, it has con¬ 
tributed 325 species, mostly from Yucatan, and from the region 
about Orizaba and Mexico, a fair proportion of which are novelties. 
From South America we have received a collection made in Bolivia 
by Miguel Bang, admirably supplementing those previously made 
by Dr. H. H. Rushy, in the same region. 
