Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/347

 BOTANICAL NEWS. 319

of the Ocliils, near Tullibody, and by Cruickshanks near Dumfries. — Mr. J. F. Duthie sent living plants of I'olygala anstriaca from Wye Downs, in Kent. — j\Ir. George Gordon presented a specimen of Cocoa-nut in which the three carpels forming the fruit are separate. — Senhor J. Correa de Mello San Paulo, Brazil, sent tubers of Aderodigma Dracontium {Arinn Dracontinm, Velloso, Fl. Flum. ix. t. 103). He states that it prefers to grow in virgin forests under the shade of large trees, in a soil formed of disintegrated granite covered with humus. The plant is known by the naujc of Jararaca, its petiole and scale being spotted like those of trirjo- nocephalus Jarararaca. which is called by the same name. He sent two varieties, viz. (1) Porphyrosticta, with the spots on the petiole, scape and spathe of a purple more or less vivid. (2.) Chlorostlcta, with spots of a dull green hue. — Mr. J. Price presented specimens of a polypetalous form 0^ Erica Tdrallx, which he imd collected near Ben Pthydding, in Yorkshire. — Mr. Wm. Evans exhibited specimens of Cotiila corouopifolla, which he collected near Aberdour, Fife.

��Mr. Robert Cross, who has been collecting seeds and plants for the Go- vernment East India plantations, has once more gone to South America, this time, on his own account, to gather Chinchona bark as a commercial speculation. It would seem a pity that the services of so enterprising and daring a traveller should be lost to the East India plantations. iSurely some remunerative situation could be found for one who has gathered, at the peril of his health and life, so much information invalu- able to the cultivator. We are glad to see that the East India Office has published Mr. Cross's "Report on the Collecting of Seeds and Plants of the Chinchonas of Pitayo ; "(printed for H.M. Stationery Office, 1871. 8vo. 52 pp., with three plates), from which it appears that the splendid ('hinchona forests of Pitayo are fast disappearing. Little of this bai-k goes to England, the greater quantity to France and Germany, especiallv to France, " whose agents have nearly demolished forests which, if pro- perly managed, would iiave paid off' the national debt of New (Jranada." Mr. Cross is of opinion that the bark sold in England as Pitayo, " and for eigliteen-peuce a pound," does not come from the Pitayo district, as genuine Fitayo fetches nearly a shilling per pound on the spot. The three plates accompanying the report represent hieroglyphics, resembling those discovered by Seemann in Veraguas, and showing that the district was inhabited at a very early period.

On August 20th, at the advanced age of eighty-four, died James De Carle Sowerby, the eldest son of James Sowerby, well-known as the artist of the original figures of ' English Botany,' published in the years from 1790-1814. In his earlier years the late Mr. Sowerby was a devoted mineralogist, and especially studied the chemistry of minerals, the results of his investigations being published in his father's ' British Mineralogv ' and ' Exotic Mineralogy.' He afterwards took up the subject of fossil conchology, and contributed various papers to the Royal, Linnciin, and Geological Societies: from the last he received in 1840 the " Wollaston jMind " in aid of his studies. To the general public, however, he was

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