Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/212

 190 BOTANICAL NEWS.

PandnuKs to drip or oliill, as all the other plants in tlu- ?nine lioiise were remarkably healthy. He feared that considerable exehanues having been made with Continental Eotnnic Gardens, the therms of the disease had been imported fiom thence. Dr. Moore al>o called attention to the tiowering at Glasnevin, he believed, for the first time, in Ireland, of SeU'itipedliim {GypripHJit,m, Lindl.) caudatum, Eeiclib. The lateral petals g'rew after the flower expanded in a few days to the length of nearly two feet. The gardens possessed a plant of Uropedmm L'uidcuii, Lindl., in which the labellum also was represented by a long slender tail, i)iit there was not at present any likelihood of its flowering.* Professor Thiselton Dyer made some renuirks on the incorrect statements current in text-books with reference to the germination of seeds. He pointed out that the en- dorhizal radication of Grasses is a necessary result of the remarkable mo- dification of the caulicle (radicle). This forms by its lateral enlargement the so-called cotyledon (scutellum). The key to its homology is sup- plied by the embryo of Zvstera as pointed out by Mr. Clarke and Professor Dickson.

��gotantcal llctos.

In the recently-published first part of the twenty-first volume of the Memoirs of the Societe de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Geneve, Dr. Duby has described and figured the new species of Acrocarpous Mosses collected by Dr. Welwitsch during his travels in Portuguese west tropical Africa, chiefly in the highlands of Angola and Benguella. The species are twenty-two in number, as follows : — SjjJiaptnm africunian, Po- ly trichinn (Po(jonatum) Iiitillense (wrongly given as uiifft)lt)ise in the text, but correct on the plate), P. eleyans, Bn//nn virioesceiis, B. spovciiosnm, B. (Bracliymcn'mm) (oiyolense, B. (Br.) IVdicitaclill, B. hn'dlentie, Cainpy- lopus sciuroideus, C. montaHUS, C. cetJdops, C. Jwrridns, Fissideus IFelw'dschii, F. macro jdiy Has, F. glaucissimi(s, F. dasyphiis, F. longipes, F. angolensls, Pottia cum pacta, P. gymuostomoides, Trtmatodon interinedium, T. augolcnse. The figures, which are drawn by the author, who had the assistance derived from Dr. Welwitsch's notes and sketches, are complete and apjiear to be executed with great accuracy. The Pleurocarpi will, it is intended, form the subject of a second communication.

Mr. Munroe, of Pennsylvania, on a botanical expedition to inspect and report on West Indian fruits, has announced that Jamaica presents the largest collection and variety of tropical fruits to be found in an^^ one district between Brazil and Mexico. Mr. ]\Iunroe has been well received by the Government Botanist, and engrafted a variety of Mangoes, an operation hitherto unsuccessful in Jamaica though successful in Bengal.

Under the title ' Georgika,' Professor Karl Birnbaum has started at Leipzig a new monthly periodical (price 12 shillings per annum), devoted to agriculture and kindred sciences, tlie first number of which, published January, 1871, contains a paper on "Wars in the Vegetable Kingdom," by Prof. H. Hoft'mann, of Giessen, giving an account of his observations on the struggles for existence going on in fields where free play is left to

and p. 123.
 * Figures of these plants will he found in the ' Flore des Serres,' vol. vi. pi. 666,

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