Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/378

 350 BOTANICAL NEWS.

are defined under tlie generic name Gal/iiric/nini/, one of which, called G. anfjUciim, comes from Wembury in Devonshire), Androsace carnea. Allium. CJiamcemoly and Muscari racemosum and botryoides. As usual, the plates are very carefully drawn and naturally coloured.

Dr. Eichler is pushing forward the publication of ' Flora Brasiliensis ' with gieat energy. The parts just issued comprise the monographs of Klatt on the Iridacece ; A. W. Bennett on Bydroleacece, HydropJiyllacea and Pedalinece ; Engler on SiLr.ifragnce^ ; Baker on Connaracece and Ampelidece ; the first portion of Doell on GrammecB, and several sheets of index to parts published previously.

The part for 1870 of the Copenhagen * Botanisk Tidsskrift ' contains a paper by Professor Laiige on the characters derived from the shape of the seeds and the sculpturing of the testa, of which we should like to give our readers an abstract, if any of our contributors could read Danish. It treats specially of Pyrolaceae, Droseraca, Cerastium and Pediciilaris, and there are plates of the seeds of twenty-five species of the last genus,

A lecture was given at Kichmond on the last Friday in September by Mr. M. Moggridge on the scenery, geology, and botany of the neighbour- hood of Mentone, the natural history of w hich he and his son have done so much lately to explore and illustrate. The greatest height that can be reached by walking parties from the town, returning the same day, is the peak of Granniendo, 4523 feet in elevation, commanding splendid views, and yielding to the botanist many truly alpine plants ; whilst late in the spring it is dotted over with the crimson blossoms of the wild Peony {JPceonia feregrina). At the sea level the olive becomes a forest tree; and the lemon, far more delicate, yields four crops in the year. He has lately discovered in the neighbourhood worked flints, imbedded in solid breccia, at a depth of thirty feet, in company with the bones of the bear, hyena, and rhinoceros.

At the exhibition of the Royal Horticultural Society at Soutli Kensing- ton, in the first week of October, an interesting feature was the collectiou of fungi, edible contrasted with poisonous and unwholesome species, shown in competition this year, as in previous ones, for a prize oifered by Mr. Wilson Saunders. The main exhibitors were Mr. Worthington Smith, Mr. English of Epping, and Messrs. Hoyle and Austen of Reading ; the latter of whom took in conjunction the principal prizes. An address on the subject of the suitability of fungi for food was delivered by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, and attentively listened to by a large gathering of ladies and gentlemen. It was generally admitted that this year's exhibi- tion was a decided advance on any of its predecessors.

There is an abstract in the ' Gardener's Chronicle' for September 30 of an interesting series of observations by Professor Goeppert, of Breslau, on the protective influence as regards the temperature of the soil exercised by a thick layer of snow. In February of the present year he took the temperature three times daily in the air and twice below the snow, and found that whilst the daily means oscillated between 2-8° Cent, on the 16th instant, and 17'6° on the sixth, the average below the surface was 1'5° on the former day and 5° on the latter. He ascribes the loss of many alpine species in lowland gardens to the want of a protective layer of snow during the winter season. Those interested in the subject ought to read the paper in detail.

Apropos of the dehiscence of the anthers of Farnassia, on which Mr. A. W. Bennett has a paper in ' Linneau Journal,' vol. ix., Professor Asa