BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



The full text of Sir Joseph D. Hooker's address on "Geograph- 

 ical Distribution," before the Geographical Section of the British 

 Association last year at York, has come to hand and proves to be what 

 a!l expected, a complete and compact review of the subject. Much 

 more information is given in its d >zen pages than can sometimes 

 be gleaned from whole volumes of more pretentious style. 



Mr. S. B. Buckley has notes upon some Texas oiks in the 

 Proc. Phil Acad., Part II, 1S81. His Que reus Durandii, which Dr. 

 Engelmann regards as one of the varielies of Q. undulata, he still holds 

 as good, though in spite of a fling at closet workers, it takes a good 

 deal of temerity to dispute Dr. Engelmann's decisions among the oaks. 

 In the same paper Q. Txana is reduced to a variety ot Q. rubra, but 

 by others it is regarded as Q. pahtstris. 



In the Torrey Bulletin for December, Mr. William Trelease 

 has a valuable paper on the "Fertilization of Scrophularia," and in 

 conclusion makes the following summary: i. The flowers are 

 adapted by their coloring, odor, nectar, form and protogyny to cross- 

 fertilization by wasps ; 2, in case the insects fail to do their part, 

 self-fertilization is fairly well assured, though we have known it to 

 tail occasionally ; 3, the existence of species which are adapted to 

 close fertilization without a previous chance for crossing remains to be 

 proved ; 4, cleistogene flowers are produced, so far as we know, by 

 only one species, S. arguta. 



Prof. John Earle, of the University of Oxford, has written a 

 little book upon "English Plant-Names from the Tenth to the Fif- 

 teenth Century." A single sentence will tell its general bearing. 

 "Plant names are often of the highest antiquity and more or less com- 

 mon to the whole stream of related nations. Could we penetrate to 

 the original suggestive idea that called forth the name, it would bring 

 valuable information about the first openings of the human mind 

 towards Nature ; and the merest dream of such a discovery invests 

 with a strange charm the words that could tell, if we could understand, 

 so much of the forgotten infancy of the human race." 



Mr. John Robinson read a paper before the Mass. State Board 

 of Agriculture upon the subject, "Ornamental Trees for Massachusetts 

 Plantations," which has just appeared in pamphlet form. Mr. Robin- 

 son sums up his principal points as follows: I. That, for planting in 

 New England, our own New England trees are, with few exceptions, 

 the best. II. That, in addition co the New England trees, we can 

 safely make use of the many beautiful and useful trees which abound 

 in the forests of the Middle States and the Alleghany Mountains; and 

 that to these Eastern species may be joined a few trees of unsurpass- 

 ed beauty in the Rocky Mountain region. III. For exotic species, 

 with which to add variety and interest to a plantation, we must look 

 to Eastern Asia rather than to Western Europe. 



Mr. Geo. Bentham, last November, read before the Linnean So- 

 ciety a paper entitled "Notes on the Gramineoe" of which an abstact 

 appears in the last Journal of Botany. When Mr. Bentham speaks we 

 all listen. In this paper, the author first mentions the fact of many 

 bad species having been established. Then is given a sketch of the 



