46 EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 



BOTANY. 

 6. — Synopsis of the JungermannijE of Germany and the neighbour- 

 ing Countries. — Although many important works have been written on the 

 Hepaticce since the publication of the present volume by Mons. T. P. Ekart, 

 amongst others that of Nees d'Esenbeck on the Hepaticce of Europe, the above 

 Synopsis is not on that account the less indispensable to those engaged in the 

 study of this portion of cryptogamic plants. His excellent figures, extracted from 

 Sir W. J. Hooker's Monograph, will prove of great use in the study of these 

 plants, the extreme minuteness of which renders them so difficult to understand. 

 It also contains good descriptions, and a carefully selected synonymy of the Jun- 

 germannice found in Germany, the British Isles, Switzerland, France, and Europe 

 in general. The author suspects, and not without reason, that those species of a ge- 

 nus which, from their smallness, easily escape observation, may one day be inclu- 

 ded in the German flora. One hundred and five Jungermannice, or nearly the whole 

 of the European species, are described. — The classification, as usual, is determined 

 according to the shape and situation of the leaves, the absence or presence of stipulse, 

 &c. The part of the work treating of this subject, by M. Nees, in which the 

 system is based upon the organs of fructification, has not been published, so that 

 M. Ekart has not had the advantage of the labours of that learned botanist in 

 this particular. The new method of dividing and classing the Jungermanni<e y 

 contemplated by M. Nees, although more philosophic and satisfactory, inasmuch 

 as it depends on more important characters, will require much time and many 

 new observations to establish it. It has, moreover, this great inconvenience. — 

 especially great to beginners — that it cannot dispense with an examination of the 

 floral parts in plants in which it is very rare to find them. The figures accom- 

 panying M. Ekart's work, represent, highly magnified, nearly all the known 

 species, and are, above all praise, beautiful and correct. 



GEOLOGY. 



7- On the Fossil Flora of Silesia. — M. Goppert has solicited the aid of his 

 countrymen in an account he intends drawing up of the petrifications of Silesia. 

 But the specimens he in a short time received from every part of the district were 

 so numerous, that he was obliged materially to enlarge the field of his labours. 

 Instead of a mere description of the fossil roots discovered in Silesia, he has under- 

 taken a monograph of this family, of which the Silesian roots have only served as 

 a commencement of his researches. The number of roots described in this work — 

 including about one-third of the fossil plants known — is 268; of which 96 are 

 found in the coal strata of Silesia, 91 in England, 49 in France, 32 in Bohemia, 63 

 in the rest of Germany, 2 in Scandinavia, 4 in the East Indies, and 2 in New 

 Holland. Only 212 kinds were before known ; but M. G.'s work has increased 

 this number by one-fourth, of which 50 are peculiar to Silesia. — Bib. Vnivers. de 

 Gen., Nov. 1836. 



