1 62 NOTES AND COMMENTS [September 



Women and the Learned Societies. 



At the recent International Congress of Women in London, Mrs. 

 Farquharson of Haughton, in the course of a paper on the work of 

 women in biological science, drew attention to the fact that at least 

 three of the large scientific societies still refuse to admit women to their 

 full fellowship, however fully qualified they may be. These three 

 societies are the Eoyal, the Linnean, and the Eoyal Microscopical. Of 

 these the Eoyal Microscopical admits women to its membership, but 

 refuses to permit them to attend its meetings, while the two other 

 societies entirely refuse membership on any terms. Mrs. Farquharson 

 dwelt upon the hardship thus entailed upon women in special cases. 



British Botany. 



That much still remains to be done in the field of British Botany — at 

 any rate among the lower plants — is evident from papers which have 

 recently appeared in the Journal of Botany. In the May number of 

 the Journal, Mr. Gepp notes the occurrence of no less than four aquatic 

 fungi, hitherto unrecorded from Great Britain, which were found growing 

 on a broom-handle floating in a reservoir near Shrewsbury. These 

 fungi belong to the genera Achlya and Apodachlya, of the family 

 Saprolegniaceae ; and there is little doubt that a careful study of the 

 native members of this group, on the lines suggested by the writer, 

 would result in other interesting finds. 



The July number of the same Journal contains a description and 

 figure of a fresh- water Alga, which forms not only an addition to the 

 British flora, but a variety new to science. It is a filamentous green 

 Alga allied to the common Cladophora, and forming, like the latter, 

 masses of tangled green threads, but of finer consistency and a brighter 

 green. It belongs to the genus Pithophora, the history of which is of 

 some interest. The genus was founded by the Scandinavian botanist 

 Wittrock, on a plant which appeared some years ago in the water-lily 

 tank at Kew, and had presumably been introduced from the Amazons 

 along with the lilies. Wittrock subsequently described several other 

 species from various parts of the world. The original one has long 

 since disappeared from Kew, and has not been found elsewhere ; but 

 another, the subject of the communication, has recently appeared in the 

 Reddish Canal, near Manchester. This canal is a classical locality, 

 having supplied a new Cham, and also become the home of an aquatic 

 mouocotyledonous flowering plant, Najas graminea. The latter is widely 

 spread in the tropics of the Old World, and has also long been known 

 from Northern Italy, where it is generally supposed to have been brought 



