Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/409

 BOTANICAL NEWS. 381

On the death of Dr. Williams, in 1834, Dr. Dnubeny was elected to the professorship, and immediately proceeded still further to improve, and, indeed, remodel the garden. So eaoer was the Professor to com- mence operations, and so anxious was the Curator to carry out his views, that, as we have heard, on the very first nii^ht of his appointment, the Professor and Curator, lantern in hand, proceeded to the garden, and then and there projected much of the alterations that were subsequently carried into effect, and which, with modifications introduced by the pre- sent Curator, have rendered the Oxford Garden, for its linuted size, so complete an establishment,. ..

Mr. Baxter had accumulated an extensive library of botanical works, which we presume will now be dispersed. — Gardeners Chronicle.

Dr. Engelraann, of St. Louis, who has studied the genus carefully for many years, has just pidjlished an important paper on the classification of the Yucca. In the first place he makes a new genus, which he calls Hesperaloe, for a plant first described by Torrey as a doubtful Yucca under the specific name of parvifiora, and afterwards by Gray as an Aloe under the name of ynccrefolia. This has entirely the general iiabit of Yucca, but ditlers by its perianth-segments joined at the base, and peri- gynous not hy|)ogynous filaments. Considering that Aloe is an exclu- sively African genus, nearly restricted to the Cape, this is probably the best settlement of the matter. The genus Yucca, as thus restricted, he divides into two subgenera, Eni/ucca and Hesperoyncca, the former with papillose and the latter with smooth filaments. Hesperoyucca is repre- sented only by Y. JlliippJci of Torrey, a plant only known in England by very imperfect herbarium specimens. Euyucca he divides into three groups, founded on the fruit, — Snrcocarpa, with ruminate albumen, and a sweet, fleshy fruit like a fig {Y. baccula, Torrey) ; Clistocarpa, with inde- hiscent fruit and entire albumen ; and Chenocarpa, with a three-valved septicidal capsule. Considering how important a character the texture of the fruit gives in LUiacere, it is of great interest to find such a range here in combination with absolute uniformity in floral structure.

The third volume of Mr. Miers's ' (Contributions to Botany ' contains a complete monograph of the siiiandar and extensive Order Menispcrmacere. The author, who had previously devoted many years of study to the investigation of the strnctiUH- of the group, first gave a sketch of his pro- posed classification in 1851 in the Annals of Nat. Hist., and subse- quently in the same publication, from 1864 to 1867, published the descriptive matter which is now collected into one volume. No less than 63 genera and 337 species are enumerated and minutely described with that attention to the less obvious characters of the fruit and seed which distinguishes all Mr. Miers's work, and the text is supplemented by 67 quarto plates, all drawn from specimens by the author iiimself, and full of information to botanists. The volume must be considered one of the most important additions to botanical literature lately published. '

We are glad to know that the Rev. R. T. Lowe's 'Manual Flora of Madeira ' is in active progress, and that a fourth part, carrying on the enumeration to the end of the Lahiatre, will shortly appear.

The fourth part, completing the volume (27th) of the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society ' has been issued. It contains two important

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