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thirty miles west of St. Louis. Here Mr. Letterman taught in the public schools uninterruptedly for twenty years, and then for two years served as superintendent of schools in St, Louis County. Shortly after settling in Allenton Mr. Letterman met August Fendler, the botanist, who had a farm at this time in the neighborhood. This meeting with Fendler stimulated his interest in plants, especially in trees, and led to an acquaintance with Dr. Engelmann, for whom Letterman made large collections of plants in the neighborhood of Allenton, with many notes on the oaks and hickories. In 1880 he was appointed a special agent of the Census Department of the United States, to collect information about the trees and forests of Missouri, Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern Texas, and later he was employed as an agent of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, to collect specimens of the trees of the same region for the Jesup collection of North American woods. The distribution of the trees of this region before Mr. Letterman's travels was little known, and much useful information concerning them was first gathered by him. Of his numerous discoveries species of Vernonia, Poa and Stipa commemorate the name of Letterman.

The above account is taken verbatim from Sargent's "Silva of North America," as it is the only authentic account of Mr. Letterman's life available. Mr. Letterman still lives at Allenton, Missouri, and is carrying on his botanical work. From the accounts of those in a position to know, his herbarium is very large, and at the present time probably contains as complete a representation of the St. Louis flora as any other, with the possible exception of the Eggert collection, which, however, can hardly surpass it. Mr. Letterman is connected with the local botanical societies, and is well known by the botanical workers of the city.

One man who has left an enduring impression upon botany, although his life work was along other lines, was Dr. Charles Valentine Riley.^[1] Dr. Riley was born at Chelsea, London, September 18, 1843. His boyhood was spent at Walton-on-Thames, where he became acquainted with W. C. Hewitson, the author of a work on butterflies. This acquaintance undoubtedly turned his inclinations towards entomology. He studied for three years in the school at Dieppe and afterwards at Bonn. His teacher at the latter place urged him to study art at Paris, but this was not done. At the age of seventeen he emigrated to Illinois and when about twenty-one went to Chicago as reporter and editor for the Prairie Farmer. He was for six months in an Illinois regiment during the latter part of the Rebellion. He attained such success as an entomologist that he was made State Entomologist for Missouri in 1868, and he held this office until 1877, when he went to Washington in the government service. During this period he and his assistants. Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt and Mr. Otto Lugger, worked out two cases of the relation of insects to plants which are of more than ordinary interest.

In 1863 there were first noted in France the ravages of the Ameri-

1. Howard, L. O., Proc. Soc. Prom. Agric. Sci., 17: 108–112, 1896.