Imperial Academy of St. Peter sburgh. 471 



IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF ST. PETERSBURGH, 1841. 



In the botanical section, M. Trinius delivered a revision and a clas" 

 sification of the genera and species of the family of the Agrostidece^ 

 and MM. Fischer and Meyer, two notes, the first containing the de" 

 scription of a plant from Mexico, which forms the type of a new 

 genus of the family of the Orchidece, under the name of Seraphyta 

 multiflora ; and the second, of the Uwarowia chrysanthemifolia of M. 

 Bunge, with a drawing of this plant. M. Meyer also read a mono- 

 graphic memoir on the Alyssum minutum, and the analogous species, 

 followed by a view of the species which form the genus Psilonema, 

 as well as the first part of a long treatise on the natural family of 

 the Polygonacea, under the title of An attempt at a natural arrange- 

 ment of the genera of this family. He has in fact finished a work 

 begun by the late M. Bongard, the object of which is the descrip- 

 tion of the plants gathered, in 1838, in the neighbourhood of the 

 Saisang-Nor, and on the banks of the Irtish. This collection, con- 

 taining 331 species, was made by a pupil of M. Gebler, named Po- 

 litoff, at Barndoul, in an excursion during the summer months of the 

 above-mentioned year, at the expense of the Academy. However 

 abundant this collection may be thought, considering the little time 

 and expense which it cost, it is still far from furnishing us with a 

 complete picture of the remarkable flora of Songarie ; it nevertheless 

 presents some of its isolated and characteristic features, to which 

 M. Meyer directs the attention of botanists in his preface. He has 

 annexed to his memoir drawings of eighteen new species contained 

 in this collection, and has expressed a desire of seeing his work not 

 only inserted in the Collected Acts of the Academy, but of its being 

 printed separately in octavo by the title of M. Ledebour's Second 

 Supplement to the Flora of the Altai, the first having been made by 

 M. Bunge from the materials which he had collected during his 

 journey in 1832, which was also made at the expense of the Aca- 

 demy. The Academy complied with this desire. M. Ruprecht, 

 who, as we mentioned above, has furnished a description of the 

 Alga? collected by Mertens in his circumnavigation, has, together with 

 M. Baer, undertaken the arrangement and the determination of the 

 Thalassiophytes which this academician brought back from his ex- 

 peditions in the north. M. Bunge, a corresponding member, has sent 

 us a note on the genus Siphonostegia, established by Mr. Bentham 

 the English botanist, and a memoir on a new species of the genus 

 Pedicularis. M. Trautvetter has sent to the Academy the descrip- 

 tion of a new species belonging to his genus Faldermannia, and ta 

 which he gives the specific name of parviflora ; and also, in two notes, 

 his remarks on two species of {Nenuphar) water-lily to which he has 

 given the name of Lotus circinatus and Lotus Candollei, and on the 

 genera which have the greatest analogy with Trifolium. Lastly, we 

 are indebted to M. Schrenk for an interesting sketch of the vegeta- 

 tion of the island of Hochland, in the Gulf of Finland. — Recueil des 

 Actes, 8fC, p. 32. 



