Notes and Comment. 281 



the natural death of higher plants, "usually attrii)uted to ex- 

 haustion, can not be explained more siMiply as the result of poisons 

 produced in their metaboHsm," but adds "that the natural death 

 of the higher plants, is the result of auto-intoxication, is a -aiere 

 hypothesis which future investigations may disprove. If, how- 

 ever, it comes to be confirmed, it would explain the coincidence 

 of death and fruceification more simply than the hypothesis of 

 predestination." 



Like words from the golden books are the closing sentences 

 in the retiring adderss of T. G. Bonney as president of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science in which he discusses 

 at length certain difficult questions interesting alike both to 

 botanists and geologists. To quote in part: "I think we shall 

 be wiser in working on in the hope of clearing up some of the per- 

 plexities. ♦ * * There are some stages in the develop- 

 ment of a scientific idea w^hen the best service we can do it is by 

 attempting to separate facts from fancies, by demanding that 

 difficulties should be frankly faced instead of being severely 

 ignored, by insisting that the giving of a name can not convert 

 the imaginery into the real, and by remembering that if hypoth- 

 eses yet on their trial are treated as axioms, the result will often 

 bring disaster, like building a tower on a foundation of sand." 



Skottsberg's Studies of the Plant Life of the Falkland Is- 

 lands indicates that the land flora of these islands is to be reck- 

 oned as a part of the INIagellan-Falkland province of the Sub- 

 arctic South American region, and that it is composed of the 

 following elements: Magellan steppe plants, 47 species; species 

 of the littoral formation of the forest region of Tierra del Fuego; 

 forest moor plants, 24; Tierra del Fuego alpine plants, 5; Tierra 

 del Fuego forest plants, 6; land plants of wider distribution, 

 especially such as occur in other extra tropical parts of South 

 America, 14; widely distributed water plants, 5; endemic species, 

 especially such as occur in other extra tropical parts of South 

 America, 14; widely distributed water plants, 5; ende"mic 

 species, 10. 



