Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/213

 BOTANICAL NEWS. 191

weeds on cullivated ground. The paper is a valuabk- contribution to the weed question, though the autlior is not familiar with its latest piiases, and we may be tempted to transfer at least portions of it to our pages.

Of Dr. F. von Mueller's esteemed Fragmenta Phytogr. Austr. no. Iv. has just reached us, containing descriptions of MotJicrwMia (gen. iiov. Araliucearum'), Ainorpho^/jerrnum (gen. nov. Sapotiicearum), and Nie- vieyera (gen. nov. Sapolacearnm). The Australasian Typhus, which were hitherlo held to be identical with our European T. anr/Kstifolia, are distinguished as T. Brownil, Kth. ('/'. latlfolia, Forst., T. angnd'ifuUn, II. Br.), and T. Mnellerl, Rohrb. {T. Shuttlewurthii, Lehm., T. anyadifoila. Hook. f. in Fl. Tas.).

Professor J. Hanstein, of Bonn, is issuing a series of morphological and physiological papers, published by A. Marcus, of Bonn, under the title of ' Botanische Abhandlungen.' The first number contains a paper by Professor Hanstein himself, on the development of the embryo of Mono- cotyledons and Dicotyledons ; whilst the second, just out, is devoted to a treatise on the structure and development of Baciilarluctfe (^Diatomacere), and from the pen of Dr. E. Pfitzer. The latter is illustrated by six excel- lent coloured plates.

The first number of Professor Cohn's ' Contributions to the Biology of Plants ' (Beitriige zur Biologic der Ptlanzen), though dispatched in Sep- tember last, has only reached us in April, 1871, containing articles by Scliroeter, Lebert, and Cohn, of permanent value, and relating to the part played by certain Algse and Fungi in decomposition and disease. The paper on " Crenothrix polyspora and the Microscopic Analysis of Well- waters," should be widelv studied, and follows up the researches of Hassall (1850) and Radlkofer (1864).

A series of portraits of noteworthy horticulturists and botanists is being published in the ' Garileiiers' Cln-onicle and Agricultural Gazette.' The following have already appeared. Dr. Hooker, C.B., F.R.S. ; W. Wilson Saiuiders, F.R.S. ; Rev. M. J. Berkeley, F.L.S. ; M. Decaisne, G. F. Wilson, F.R.S., and Professor Reichenbacli, of Hamburg.

The first part of the fourtli volume of the Danish ' Botanisk Tidsskrift,' recently published, contains a complete catalogue of the plants of the Faroe Islands, with an introduction and critical notes. The author is Mr. E. Rostrup, who, with Mr. C. A. Feilberg, spent the summer of 18G7, collecting in the group. Of fiowering plants and Ferns the cata- logue contains about 860 species, besides many varieties ; complete lists are also given of the lower Cryptogams. The liora of these small islands possesses a great interest for students of onr n tive plants, because, although not dependent on the English Crown, the Faroe isles must be considered geographically as |)art of the archipelago of which Great Britain and Ireland are the largest members. The accident, so to speak, of poli- tical relationships should not be allowed to override physical ones, and it would be more fitting that British Floras should include the score or so of species which these islands add to our list, than that their consistency should be destroyed by the admission of thirty or more species absent from Great Britain and Ireland, but found in the Channel Islands, the vegetation of which is that of Western Continental Europe.

Mr. T. Moors will delivtir a course of si.\ lectures on Boiany, illustrated by fresh specimens, at the garden of the Apothecaries' Society, Chelsea, every Wednesday and Saturday at four p.m., from Wednesday May 31st

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