vernment the desirability of purchasing the herbarium and part of the library of the late Sir W. Hooker, for £6000.

The Stockholm Academy is going to publish a photo-lithographic reprint of the first edition of Linnæus's 'Systema Naturæ.'

The Austrian Government has bought the Aroidea and alpine collection of Schott's herbarium, and the Horticultural Society of London the library of the late Dr. Lindley.

The series of scientific lectures which Drs. Huxley and Carpenter and Sir John Bowring have commenced, at St. Martin's Hall, on Sunday evenings have been discontinued, as doubts have been raised whether they were not a desecration of the Sabbath, and funds are now collecting for a lawsuit to see whether Sunday scientific lectures are or are not an infringement of the law.

The Jamaica papers of December 6, 1865, remark on the subject of Chinchona cultivation :-"The alleged difficulty of raising these valuable plants in Jamaica, difficulties which were regarded with superstitious awe, insomuch that even our Prime Minister shared in the delusion, has now been practically solved. One tree, a magnificent specimen at Clifton, is now in bloom. The tree is 11 feet in height. It will be recollected that the late lamented Dr. Daniell extracted some highly valuable alkaloids from the leaves of the plants at Clifton. (Conf. Journ. of Bot. ii. p. 100.) We trust that Mr. Nathaniel Wilson will receive some mark of appreciation from the country for his perseverance in the cultivation of these valuable plants, notwithstanding obstacles and 'good and evil report.'"

Messrs. J. J. Bennett, Miers, Babington, and Daubeny have been elected vice-presidents of the International Botanical Congress.

On the 27th of January, died, at Gratz, in his sixty-ninth year, Dr. Joseph Maly, author of a 'Flora von Deutschland,' 'Botanik für Damen,' and several other works. He was a native of Prague, but resided the greater part of his life at Gratz, where he practised as homoeopathist until, about fifteen years ago, he became totally deaf. In his private character he was a very estimable man, unwearied in his attention to any botanist who came with an introduction to him, and most liberal in imparting information; but not a man of enlarged views, or philosophic turn of mind. In the discrimination of species he was most accurate, and his books are therefore of great value as a guide to the flora of his country. By the loss of his practice, which was never a very lucrative one, he was reduced to poverty, and, notwithstanding the generous assistance of his fellow-townsmen and friends, seems to have passed the last years of his life in want of many comforts that in better days he had been used to regard as necessaries.

Our obituary of this month must also include the names of Dr. Peter J. Lenné, Director General of the Royal Gardens at Potsdam, near Berlin, who was born at Bonn in 1789, and died on the 23rd of January, and whose name survives in the Leguminous genus Lennea; also that of George Schnittspahn, Director of the Botanic Garden at Darmstadt, who was born on the 3rd of January, 1810, and died ont he 22nd of December, 1865, and who was the author of a monograph of Sempervivum, of which he cultivated probably one of the largest collections in Europe, and many pomological articles.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH.-December 14. Professor Balfour in the chair. The following communications were read: -I. Observations on the Genus Moringa. By N. A. Dalzell, M.A., Bombay. The author called attention to the affinity between Moringa and the Bignoniacea. In both there is a long pendu. lous capsule, with winged seeds seated in cavities of a spongy or corky placenta ; the seeds of both are exalbuminous and parietal, with the radicle next the hilum. Although the seeds of Bignoniacea are generally transverse, yet Moringa agrees with the tribe Incarvillea in having the seeds pendulous, while in the amygda. loidal character of the cotyledons, Moringa resembles Oxycladus and Crescentia. In habit, foliage, and inflorescence there is a striking resemblance between Moringa and Bignoniaceæ, as may be well seen in Bignonia moringæfolia, B. xylocarpa, and Millingtonia hortensis. The author considers Moringa as essentially gamopetalous, and thinks that there is no true disk; what has been called a disk appears to be the coherent bases of ten filaments. He concludes that Moringa belongs to the Bignonial alliance. II. On Asplenium Petrarcha, De Cand., as an Irish Plant. By F. Naylor, Esq. A specimen of only one plant was observed near Flurry Bridge in Ireland, and since its dis. covery the station has been robbed. From the single frond which was shown, it was not easy to come to a definite conclusion as to the species. Mr. Newman, however, has noticed the Irish plant as Asplenium Petrarchæ, in the fourth edition of his British Ferns.' III. On the Cyclone of 5th October, 1864, at the Botanic Garden, Calcutta. By Dr. Thomas Anderson. (Already published in 'Journal of Botany,' Vol. III. p. 370.) IV. Notice of Plants collected in Iceland, etc. By M. Éd. Jardin, Cherbourg. M. Jardin's paper was accompanied by a set of specimens of plants collected by him in Iceland, Faroe Islands, and Norway. Some of them were found in very hot springs and in the vicinity of the Geysers. Among them were an Equisetum, a Juncus, a Conferva, a Potamogeton, a Chara, a Hippuris, and a Hypnum. V. Letter from Mr. William Milne, dated Cameroons, Africa, 27th June, 1865. Mr. Milne alludes to the improvement which has taken place in Fernando Po and its vicinity by the clearing of the ground and the planting of chocolate-trees and cotton. By the end of this year one firm will have upwards of 100,000 cacao-trees above ground, and these plants will produce in 1867 about 500,000 pounds of cacao. During the early stage of the plantation, cotton is planted among the chocolatetrees. Coffee has also been extensively planted, and thrives well. Mr. Milne alludes to the bark of a tree called Saricu, more rapidly fatal in its effects than the Calabar bean, and used as an ordeal poison. He alludes to the introduction of the mango, breadfruit, soursop, citron, tamarind, and other important plants into Calabar and the Gaboon. Mr. Milne then gives an account of an excursion to the Cameroon Mountains, and notices some of the plants collected. Dr. Greville noticed the occurrence of a rare fungus (Sparassis crispa) at Didlington Park, Norfolk, the seat of A. T. Amhurst, Esq., and showed a drawing of the plant of the natural size made by Admiral Mitford of Hunmanby, Yorkshire. It is of a cream-white colour, and as large as a full-grown cabbage. Professor Balfour exhibited specimens of Plantago collected on the mountains of Scotland, which seemed to correspond with Plantago alpina of the Continent. [But from specimens kindly sent to me for examination it is merely a form of P. maritima.-ED.]

January 11th. Dr. Greville, President, in the chair.-The following communications were read :-I. Notes on Orchella Weed and on a new Sphæria from Angola, West Africa. By Dr. L. Lindsay. The author stated that he had found attached to specimens of Angola Orchella-weed fragments of the trees and shrubs on which the weed, a species of Roccella, grows. These twigs were not such as to enable him to determine the species on which they grow. He remarked that it was of importance that we should know the species of trees which nourished the valuable Roccella (R. Montagnei and R. fuciformis), which constitutes the Orchella of commerce, imported largely from the coasts of Central Africa. These Roccella, which appear to have completely superseded all other lichens in the manufacture of orchil and cudbear, are as common in the eastern as in the western coasts of Africa. Dr. Kirk has sent specimens of a state of Roccella fuciformis, growing on Dalbergia Melanoxylon on the Roruma river, in eastern tropical Africa. On the same twigs affected by the Roccella there is abundance of minute Verrucariæ and Graphidia, with occasional Parmelia. Associated with Verrucaria epidermis, Mr. Currey has detected in Dr. Lindsay's specimens a new species of Sphæria, which Dr. Lindsay has called Sphæria Kirkiana. II. On the Parts involved in the Process of Defoliation. By Mr. W. R. M'Nab. The author showed that the process of defoliation was to be studied only by an examination of the develop. ment of the leaf. From off the plant appears a small mamilla or cushion, which the author called the phylloblast. This, at a certain stage, became differentiated into two parts, one near the axis—a stationary part-the other a rapidly-developing part attached to the axis, not directly, but through the lower part. The stationary lower part he called the hypophyll; the other, the epiphyll. The hypophyll developed the stipules from any part of its surface. The epiphyll developed the parts of the leaf proper-lamina and petiole. The stipules are thus not properly appendages of the petiole, but belong to a morphologically distinct part. In the leaves of deciduous plants (those with free lateral stipules being most typical, and in which the process is best seen) the leaf falls off so as to leave the stipules and hypophyll entire, as in Cytisus Laburnum, Lirriodendrum tulipifera, etc., the cicatrix being formed by the hypophyll. The author then maintains that the separation takes place between one part of the leaf and another-between hypophyll and epiphyll, and not between axis and leaf, as has generally been supposed to be the case. III. On Chinchona Cultivation in Ceylon. By Mr. Clements Markham. Mr. Markham, of the India Office, has been deputed by the Government to visit the planters along the western coast of India, and try to induce them to cultivate the Chinchona-tree, in order that a new source of supply of quinine may be obtained. He has been visiting and reporting on the Hakgalla Plantation, in Ceylon. IV. On Plants collected during a Tour in Ireland in 1865. By Mr. F. Naylor. Among the plants met with were-Dabocia polifolia, Erica Mediterranea and E. Mackaiana, Saxifraga hirta, and various species of the Robertsonian Saxifrages, Eriocaulon septangulare, Pinguicula grandiflora, Cyperus fuscus, Trichomanes radicans, Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, etc. V. Report on the Flowering of Plants in the Open Air at the Royal Botanic Garden. By Mr. M'Nab.

NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN.--At the last meeting of this Society, Dr. David Moore, F.L.S., M.R.I.A., President, in the chair, Mr. W. Archer read a paper on Bulbochate Pringsheimiana, sp. nov. (Oospore elliptic; dwarf male plants seated upon the oogonium, which they equal in length; oogonium bearing immediately above it the mother-cells of the androspores.) This minute plant belongs to a family of Chlorospermatous Algæ, containing two genera, rich in forms. They are mainly but simple filamentous plants-that is, composed of cells following one another in a simple branched or unbranched linear series, and of a bright green colour. That they should reproduce themselves by zoospores may not be surprising, this phenomenon having been now so long known in many Alge; but they are also amongst those of the humbler Algæ, in which, thanks mainly to Pringsheim's masterly researches, a true reproductive process by the mutual co-operation of distinct sperm-cells and germ-cells—a true fertilized spore-was first known to be formed. With the exception of the species of Edogonium and Bulbochate described by Pringsheim and De Bary, I am not acquainted with those of any other author which I can regard as of any value. Indeed, the more advisable course seems to be to ignore them. Possibly my plant may have been described before; but, inasmuch as the distinctions put forward in Edogonieæ are founded, not on the characters presented by the fructification, but simply on comparative dimensions of the vegetative parts, it would be impossible to be certain. Therefore, in the present instance, the only course seems to be to follow Pringsheim, and name the present plant on the characters offered by the reproductive organization. The fact is that it is quite possible that the true species in the Edogonieæ are by no means so numerous as are the pseudospecies recorded in books, on what seem to be, at least comparatively, unessential characters. Pringsheim has indicated the plan which an observer, desirous to work out this group, should follow, which, if indeed it be seemingly the only correct one, has the disadvantage that the distinctions are necessarily founded on data comparatively so recondite as that an observer must trust to good fortune in obtaining the specimens in which the characters of the fructification are fully displayed. Dr. E. Perceval Wright said he had been struck by the description of the cell development in Bulbochate, which differs in several respects from that described by Karsten in Edogonium. But the most remarkable phenomenon by far was the development and growth of Pringsheim's "androspore." In this he could recognize nothing but a highly specialized bud or phytoid form. Physiologically it had nothing in common with a spore, and the name chosen was, he thought, an unhappy one, as it did not draw distinction enough between a sperm, the product of a true sperm-cell, and a bud, which, however much it might at first sight resemble a sperm, was destined to develope itself into a receptacle of antherozoids. The comparative physiologist could not fail to be struck with the similarity of this form of development with what is met with in some of the Hydrozoa. In both a highly differentiated portion of the organism separates as a motile bud,—in the one a phytoid, in the other a zooid form; in both, their destined function being to mingle their matured contents with the products of the germ-cells of the same species.