28 BOTANICAL (JAZKTTK 



establish them upon characters that would be unmistakable and invariable. He has 

 found these characters in the buds and spores. As the characters depending on the 

 spores can be uclerniined only b}' verj- high microscopical power, in the present paper 

 he describes the buds. An accompanjnng plate, with figures drawn by 31 J. H. Euier 

 ton, renders the descri])tions very plain and easy to Ibllow. With tliis number tlie 

 Bulletin began its ninth year o; i)ublication, and we wish it long life and success. It 

 consists of four or more ])ages monthlj-. The price is one dollar per annum, in ad- 

 vance. Address Wm. A. Leggett, 54 East 81st Street, N. Y. City 



Science Ohxcrcei; January. — This journal is printed at Boston by the Boston Ama- 

 teur Society. Its subscription ]n'ice is tifty cents per annum. It consists of eight 

 pages and a cover. Address Science Observer, Box 2,735, Boston. 



The Gardener's Monthly, January. — We are always at a loss what to note in this jour- 

 nal. It is so full of facts, that to select one would seem to slight others. Of course 

 the part pertaining strictly to gardeners we can legitimately pass over, as it does not be- 

 long to our province. But botanists too, have a corner, and a good large one, for Mr. 

 Thos. Meehan is a scientific botanist as his frequent contributions to the Proceedings of 

 the Phila. Acad, of Nat. Sci., will show. 



The Vallen JVafui ulist, Jnuimry. — The first number of this month!}' is before us. 

 It is published at St. Louis, Mo., by Henry Skaer, 1,213 South 6th St. The subscription 

 price is fifty cents per annum, and its object is to aid the diftusion of natural science 

 in a i)opular form. The present number lias its departments of Entomology, Botany, 

 Ornitholog}^ and Conchology well representerl. 



Botanical Index, Jauuaiy. — Published by L. B. Case at Riclimoud, Iiul. AVith the 



number before us the Index begins its second j-ear of existence. It contains 12 pages 



or more of matter devoted to Floriculture and Horticulture. It is well illustrated and 



• certainly deserves the patronage of all amateur gardeners or florists. The suijscription 



price of the Index is 50 cents per year. 



Silurian Pl(intt<,hy \iQO Lescjuereux. — Read before the American Phil. Soc, Oct. 

 19, 1877. The author describes in this paper five new species of land plants recently 

 discovered in the Silurian rocks of the I'uited States, one of them belonging to a new 

 genus. "The discovery, an important one for the Natural History of this country, was 

 recorded in the Am. Jour, of Science and Arts, Jan. 1874, p. 31, and the remains, repre- 

 senting two fragments of stems and branches, were briefly described at the same time." 

 Now for the tirst time the plants are fully described. A branch 'f n fern has been re- 

 cently obtained from the Silurian Schists or Slates of Angers, France, but this impor- 

 tant discovery of land plants in the Silurian was forestalled in America. "It is a re- 

 markable fact that the character of these Silurian plants gives us a microcosmical rep- 

 resentation of the flora of the Carboniferous, so simple and at the same time so admira- 

 ble in the multiple sub-divisions of its specific forms." We now have represented in 

 the Silurian the Ii/eopodiacew; the Ferns; the Valamaria, representing Cryptogamous 

 acrogens like the ferns; the Sirjillariw, or representatives of the Phienogamous gymno- 

 sperm. "When C'ordaites (now considered Conifers) are found in Silurian beds (a 

 probable discoveiy, for they have been found abundant in the Devonian,) we shall have 

 all the essential types of the plants of the Carboniferous flora already represented in 

 the oldest paleozoic times." Mr. Lesquereux also describes a fungus found in the shales 

 of the Darlington Coal bed at Cannelton, Penn "This discovery" the author remarks, 

 "is not less remarkable than that of land plants in the Silurian." 



