ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 81 



He gives descriptions of thirteen species in all, and three of these are 

 new species collected in South America. 



Asplenium Ruta-muraria.* — V. H. Christ has studied the varieties 

 and allies of this well-marked but most variable species, and publisher 

 a systematic account of the various forms grouped in accordance with 

 his views, with descriptions and critical notes and figures. He arranges 

 them in four sections — rhomboidea, ellipsoidw, lanceolate/,, cuneata — ■ 

 according to the ultimate segments of their leaves. Passing on to the 

 consideration of the abnormal forms, exotic forms and allies of A. Ruta- 

 muraria, he concludes with a synoptic key to the whole group. 



Linnaeus's System of Ferns.f — L. M. Underwood criticises 

 Linnaeus's treatment of the ferns, especially those of America, in the 

 Species Plantar urn (1753), and shows that he was not the originator of 

 binominal nomenclature. His conception of the genera was, with a 

 few exceptions, far different from those of the present day. His fern- 

 system was crude even for the time at which it was published, as is 

 evidenced by the unnatural groupings under Osmunda, Acrostichum, 

 and Polypodium. The greater number of his species were compiled 

 from books and plates. His herbarium is of comparatively little value 

 for the determination of his types. A small part only are represented 

 by specimens, often scrappy — mere tips of leaves, often sterile. His 

 types must very largely depend on the plates and descriptions of ea lier 

 writers quoted by him. 



Bars alt, E. — Nota sul Polypodium vulgare L. (Note on Poh/podiam vulgarelj.) 

 [Describes a waxy coating excreted by the exposed rhizoinu to protect itself 

 fiom desiccation in hot climates.] 



Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital, 1903, pp. 119-21. 

 Lyon, F. M. — Two megasporangia in Selaginella. 



[Occurrence of two normal megasporangia on one sporophyll in Selaginella 

 ritpestris.] Bot. Gazette, xxxvi. (1903) p. 30S (fig. in text;. 



Bryophyta. 



Fossil British Mosses.:}: — 0. Reid gives a list of ten mosses ob- 

 tained from a glacial fresh-water stratum, reached at a depth of GO feet, 

 during the sinking of a well at Mundesley in Norfolk. They were 

 identified by H. N. Dixon, who reports that tne bulk of the deposit 

 consisted of Hypnum turyesce/is, a boreal moss which was not known 

 to grow in the British Isles, but was discovered on Ben Lavvers in 

 July 1902. With it were H. capillifolium and H. Richardsoni, neither 

 of which are members of the existing British flora. A variety of H. 

 polygamum occurred in some quantity. 



North American Species of Leskea.§ — G. N. Best publishes a 

 revision of Leskea, a genus now much restricted as compared with its 

 earlier dimensions. The name Leskea may have to be transferred if 

 the strictest rules of nomenclature are applied to it. Accepting L. poly- 

 carpa as the type of the genus, he ranges the species under two sub- 



* Hedwigia, xlii. (1903) pp. 153-77 (4 pis.). 



t Tonvya, id. (19u:s) pp. 145-50. 



% Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Nat. Soc, vii. (1902; pp. 290-S. 



§ Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxx. (1903) pp. 463-82 (2 pis.). 



Feb. 17th, 1904 G 



