BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 191 



of distinct species can be little short of 580; a very great proportion 

 of which have never been before described. They were collected on the 



W 



Western 



Brighton beach and Geelong, Port Phillip, Port Jackson, Newcastle, 

 and Kiama, New Sonth Wales ; Georgetown and Port Arthur, Tasma- 

 nia ; and Auckland, New Zealand. 



Words cannot describe the exquisitely beautiful structure and deli- 

 cate colouring of many of these species, which throw the Alga of other 

 seas quite into the shade, — we especially allude to the group of Rho- 

 dospermecB ; for example, the Claudea elegans (of which the samples 

 hitherto existing in our herbaria have been comparatively but frag- 

 ments), the Mertensice (of which there are two new species), the Ham- 

 wice, the Dasyce, Laurencia, Asparagopsis, Wrangelia, Delesseria, Nito- 

 phylla, Kallymenia cribrosa (a purple-rose-coloured membrane, two feet 

 or more in length, all perforated with minute, perfectly circular open- 

 ings), Halophlegma, Battia, etc. ;— these are no less remarkable for their 

 roseate hues, than are some of the Caulerpce, Bryopsis, etc., among the 

 Chlorosperrnece, for their bright herbaceous tints. 



This series of Alga is one of the most valuable contributions to 

 Cryptogamic botany of the present century, and such as no one but 

 the author of the ' Manual of the British Algae, 5 ■ Phycologia Britan- 

 nica,' • Nereis Australasica/ etc. etc., could have accomplished. 



Plants of Chili. 

 Through M. Huet du Pavilion (Rue Verdaine, Geneva), we have re- 

 ceived a very beautiful series of plants from Chili, collected in different 

 and distant portions of that Eepublic by M. Ph. Germain, many from 

 the higher Andes (218 species), excellent specimens, and extremely well 

 prepared. Many are of great rarity; and such a collection is of the 

 greater interest, now that we possess a Flora of Chili, by M Claude 

 Gay C Historia Fisica y Politica de Chile : Botanica'), where they are, 

 at least the majority of them, described. We believe all the sets hi- 

 therto sent were immediately disposed of, but we know that M. Hue 

 du Pavilion is expecting another consignment from M. Germain : and 

 we trust that so good a collector and so good a botanist (for the spe- 

 cimens are all ticketed and named), will extend his researches to the 

 eastern side ofthe Chilian Andes to the plains of Mendoza. 



