NEWS NOTES AND CURRENT COMMENT. 95 



Mr. C. B. Clarke, F. R. S., the well-known monographer of 

 the Cyperacea? of India and South Africa, has been elected a Cor- 

 responding Member of the Acadeinie Internationale de Geographie 

 Botanique, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Professor 

 Lange. — J. b. d. 



A revision of the North American and Mexican species of 

 Mimosa for the Synoptical Flora has recently been completed by 

 Dr. B. L. Robinson, and appears in advance in the Proceedings of 

 the American Academy (xxxiii. 305). The construction of a satis- 

 factory key was attended with difficulties on account of the variation 

 in the inflorescence which passes gradually from capitate to spicate, 

 and in the number of leaflets, which is astonishingly inconstant 

 upon the same individual; the spines, too, were found to be well 

 developed or obsolete in plants which were in all other respects 

 identical. The generic limits coincide with those laid down by 

 Bentham. Sixty-seven species are described. 



Under the title of "Studies in the Herbarium and Field," Miss 

 Alice Eastwood begins a series of papers in the Proceedings of the 

 California Academy of Sciences, No. 1 (i, ser. 3, 71) having been 

 published Nov. 23, 1897. The most interesting part of the paper 

 is an account of some spurless forms of Aquilegia from Colorado, 

 which are well deserving of continued observation under cultivation. 

 Three new varieties peculiar to the White Sands Region of New 

 Mexico are named, described and figured, and also the following 

 new species from California: Iris Purdyi, Montia rosulata, and 

 Neivberrya subterranea. The last named, in our opinion, can be 

 homologized specifically with Hemitomes pumilum Greene, a curious 

 root-parasite with subglobose body, which flowers and fruits beneath 

 the surface of the ground. Miss Eastwood's plant, as the specific 

 name would indicate, is also subterranean. A difference in the 

 depth of seating of the plant- body would readily account for the 

 slight difference indicated in the color of the flowers, and as to the 

 number of parts in the flower the sepals in Hemitomes pumilum may 

 be either 4 or 3 or apparently even 2, and the petals 6, 5, or 4. In 

 fact, the variation is quite analogous to that in Boschniakia stro- 

 bilacea, a subterranean root-parasite of similar form. The author 

 also describes three new manzanitas from Mt. Tamalpais, California, 

 viz., Arctostaphylos glandulosa, montana and cauescens, forms which 



