"Swamp behind the Botanic Garden," places that have long been covered by paved streets and brick and brown-stone blocks. When we read that one rare plant is found "in sandy fields, above Canal Street," we get a glimpse of what the New York of the author's youth must have been. We have dwelt thus upon this catalogue, as it is the precursor of a list of most valuable botanical publications which we can here only enumerate in chronological order:
1820. "A Notice of Plants collected by Captain N. Douglass around the Great Lakes at the Head-waters of the Mississippi."—(Silliman's Journal, vol. iv.)
1823. "Descriptions of some New or Rare Plants from the Rocky Mountains, collected by Dr. Edwin James."—(Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History.)
1824. "A Flora of the Northern and Middle United States, or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of all the Plants heretofore discovered in the United States north of Virginia." Elliott's "Botany of South Carolina and Georgia" was being published in numbers at the time Dr. Torrey commenced this Flora, which, as he says in his preface, was intended as a "counterpart" to Elliott's work. Like Elliott's work, his was issued in numbers, and the first volume was completed in 1824. But one volume of this work was published, and, as a portion of the edition was destroyed by fire, it is now only rarely to be met with. It contains over 500 pages, and includes the first twelve classes of the Limuean system, the species being described with a clearness and minuteness and the synonymy elaborated with a care not heretofore displayed in any work upon American botany. It was the first work in which our Northern grasses were treated in a thorough manner, and students of the Graminaceœ at the present day find this a most useful work of reference. At an early day the author foresaw that the Linnæan system must be superseded by the natural system of Jussieu. This consideration, together with the loss of a large part of the first volume, led him to abandon the work. In order to supply the immediate wants of students, he prepared a compendium, which gave brief descriptions of the plants contained in the first volume of the Flora and of those which would have been included in the second volume.
1824. "Descriptions of New Grasses from the Rocky Mountains."—(Annals of the Lyceum.)
1824. (Joint author with Schweinitz.) "A Monograph of the North American Species of Carex."—(Annals of the Lyceum.)
1826. "Compendium of the Flora of the Northern and Middle States"—a full, concise, and compact work, referred to above.
1826. "Some Account of a Collection of Plants made during a Journey to and from the Rocky Mountains in the Summer of 1820, by Edwin P. James, M. D., Assistant-Surgeon United States Army." This paper was read before the Lyceum in 1826, but was not pub-
