HO BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



notes have been added, giving the geographical range, and an extra 

 sheet has been prepared for use as a check list. It will be a pam- 

 phlet of 50 pages or more and will really be more of a hand-book 

 than a mere catalogue. Mr. Davenport's address is Medford, Mass. 



Journal of Botany, British and Foreign. — The first article is a no- 

 tice with figures, by S. LeM. Moore, of the Royal Herbarium Kew, 

 of a monstrous monandrous Cypifipedinm. It leads to a discussion of 

 other deviations from the usual structure of Cypripedium, one of 

 which was observed by Dr. Asa Gray. The inference is that the di- 

 androus is an earlier type than the monandrous, — "that some type 

 probably extinct at the present time, containing stamens of the two 

 whoils and C'l/pripedium pollen was the starting point of the order " 

 A note by Dr. Marten on the structure of Composites, in further con- 

 firmation of the theory, that the pappus is not a true calyx but a 

 series of trichomes rather tlian definite phylloines. Description of 

 new plants from China and from Persia. In the proceedings of the 

 Linnean Society of London, Nov. T, 1878, Dr. Maxwell Marten read an 

 extract from a letter of Dr. Beccari, describing a gigantic Aroid, 

 found by him in Sumatra. The species which he calls Conophallus 

 Titanum has a tuber five (5) feet round, from which is pushed up a 

 single leaf, with a long stout petiole, the divided blade covering an 

 area of forty-five (-15) square feet. — A, P. M. 



Frasera Carolinensis, Walt. — Drs. Gray and Chapman in their 

 Floras disagree as to the duration of the life of this plant. Both, 

 however, are wrong. The plant is not a biennial or triennial as Prof. 

 Gray describes it, nor a perennial as said by Chapman in his South- 

 ern Flora, but is probably of uncertain duration, varying from 8 to 10 

 years and upwards. Three roots dug from the woods in Madison Co., 

 111., in 1SG9, must have been several years old at the time. One fruit- 

 ed in 1875, one in 1876 and the last this year, 1878. The roots form 

 each year a rosette of root leaves. When the fruiting stalk starts up 

 in May it grows rapidly, and after the fruit is mature in July and 

 August the root perishes. — E. Hall. 



Dr. Morgan's article on the Phyllotaxy of Leaves will be concluded 

 in the April number. 



