I^g SCIENTIFIC NEW«* 



FstiifiedftttlU. Mr. Sage has described some carpoliteB. One was a tcet^ 

 nel of a walnut, found at Lons-le-Saulnier; another ap- 

 peared to have been the fruit of the wild nutmeg, that grows 

 at Madagascar and in some of the Molucca islands; and 

 the third belonged apparently to a genus approaching the 

 durio. The last was converted into jasper, the other two 

 into limestone. To these observations Mr. S. adds some 

 others, that had been made before, and concludes from 

 them, that the petrified fruits found in our climates are 

 exotic. He likewise enters into a chemical investigation of 

 the means by which these petrifactions have been eifected. 



Order and method will always be two objects of the 

 greatest importance in natural history, and particularly in 

 botany; and accordingly the most celebrated naturalist* 

 New order of have made them their particular study. Mr. de Jussieu, 

 ^ ^^' who may justly be considered as the legislator of methods 



in botany, has formed a new order of plants under the 

 name of monimias. The genera, of which he composes it, 

 are ruizia, raonimia, ambora, and perhaps citrosma, pavo- 

 nia, and antherospermia. This order should be placed im- 

 mediately before the family of utriceae: but at the end of 

 the monimiae Mr. de J. places the calycanthus, hitherto 

 united with the rosaceae, which he considers as the type of 

 a new order, that will serve as an intermediate link between 

 the monimiae and utriceae. 

 Fructificatior* Mr. Palissot-Beauvois has studied the organs of fructifi- 

 Qf grasses. cations in grasses more accurately than had been before 

 done; and on the structure of each part of these organs 

 has founded characters, that distinguish them from each 

 other; thus affording means of arranging the numerous 

 species in genera much more natural than those hitherto 

 adopted. 

 N©w plant of ^''' Labillardiere has made known a new plant of the 

 thepalji kind, family of palms, of which he makes a genus under the 

 name of ptychosperma, bordering on the elates and arecas. 

 This plant was discovered by the author in New Ireland. 

 It frequently reaches the height of sixty feet, and yet its 

 trunk is but two or three inches in diameter. From these 

 proportions Mr. L. gives it the specific name of gracilis. ,It 

 it aatonibhing, as he observes, that so slender a tree shoulct 



support 



i 



