EDITOR'S TABLE. 



We observe that a new monthly botanical work, to be called " Filices Exoticje, or Figures 

 and Descriptions of Exotic Ferns, particularly of such as are most deserving of Cultivation," 

 is to appear from the practised pen of Sir William Hooker. Each part is to contain eight 

 colored plates, executed by Mr. Fitch. Such a publication is wanted, and will contribute to 

 the settlement of the names of Ferns, which pseudo-scientific writers have contrived to 

 reduce to deplorable confusion. The work will be published by Lovell Reeve. 



The same publisher announces the preparation, by Professor Harvey, of a work to appear 

 in monthly parts, each containing six colored plates and as many pages of letter-press, under 

 the name of Phycologia Australasica ; or, Figures and Descriptions of Australian Sea-weeds. 

 Publication to commence as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers' names to justify 

 the necessary outlay, shall have been received. 



Illcstkations of books are sometimes produced in a way indicating that author and artist 

 have not worked in unison ; in fact, that the artist has never read the author. A striking 

 example is furnished in Godfrey's Grinnell Exploring Expedition, where the author relates 

 that Dr. Kane became so ill with cold that Godfrey had to carry him a long distance on his 

 shoulders, Kane all the time declaring, in his hallucination, that he saw a bear about to 

 attack him. Godfrey takes much pains to assure his commander, and the reader, also, that 

 there was no bear; but lo ! the engraver, following the illustrator, inserts a bear running 

 alongside ! and turning up a very threatening snout. In this way, the public lose their 

 confidence in illustrations, which thus become worthless. We could name a manufactory 

 of wood blocks, where, by changing the borders of pictures, one battle scene is made to do 

 duty a dozen times in the same " history," and, after illustrating the American Revolution, 

 appears in the life of Napoleon ! There is a class of books of this kind foisted on unsus- 

 pecting people, the history of which it will do somebody a service to write. They remind 

 one of the colloquy between the showman and the children : " Look to the right, my little 

 dears, and you'll see the lions attacking of the dogs. Look to the left, and you'll see the dogs 

 attacking of the lions." " If you please, sir, which is the lions, and which is the dogs ?" 

 " Whichever you please, my pretty dears ; you've paid your money, and you've a right to 

 choose." This would scarcely answer for botany. 



The Calabash-Tree. — Among the products of Cuba, alluded to in our hasty notes on that 

 island, is the long-leaved Calabash-tree, CVescentm cujete. This species attains the ordinary 

 height of a pear-tree, being twenty to twenty-five feet in height. As it has been found at 

 Key West, and is therefore American, we abridge a description of it from Nuttall : In the 

 countries where it is indigenous, the wood is employed for saddle-trees, stools, chairs, and 

 other articles of furniture ; the fruit varies in form and size from ovoid to round ; it is covered 

 with a thin, even, smooth skin, of a greenish-yellow, and under this is a hard and ligneous, 

 shell, which contains a soft, yellowish pulp, of an acrid and disagreeable taste, which is 

 employed as a remedy for dropsy, diarrhoea, and inflammations of the chest. Applied ex- 

 ternally, it is deemed serviceable in bruises, burns, and headaches. The Indians and cattle 

 sometimes eat the fallen fruit, and the former employ it, when hollowed out, for rattle boxes. 

 This shell of the fruit is used for various kinds of domestic vessels, such as goblets, coflee 

 cups, tobacco boxes, dram bottles, &c., and it is said, even for kettles to boil water in, it 

 being so thin, hard, and close-grained, as to stand the fire several successive times before it 

 is destroyed. We are indebted to D. J. N. Gomez for noble specimens. 



The leaves grow out in clusters of nine or ten together. The flowers come out on the 

 trunk and branches, are of a dull greenish-yellow, about one and a half inch long, solitary, 

 "O and of a disagreeable smell. The dried shells, cut in half for domestic purposes are 

 by the blacks in the Cuba market, and are quite a curiosity. 



