BOTANICAL NEWS. 133 



■wliicli the fossil elephants were supposed to have lived might be repeated. 

 Existing Osmundacete contained no silica in their structnre. The peculiarity 

 of the fossil under consideration was the preservation of the contents of the cells, 

 even to the starch, whicli is so I'eadily decomposed. The difficulty of accounting 

 for tlie replacement of soft vegetable matter by hard mineral silica seemed to 

 him great. 



LiTEEART AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF MANCHESTER. — Feb. 8th, 1870. 



— J. P. Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the chair. The following paper 

 was read : — '' On the Natural Ropes used in packing Cotton Bales in the Bra- 

 zils." By Charles Bailey. We shall print this paper in abstract in our next. 



)olankal Dctos. 



NEW BOOKS, PERIODICALS, ETC. 



The second volume of Mr. Miers's ' Contributions to Botany' has been pub- 

 lished. It consists of reprints of tlie author's thirteen papers, which appeared 

 in the Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist, from 1860-1869, collated and revised, and 

 with 35 illustrative plates. Like everything Mr. Miers writes, these papers are 

 real additions to science. The titles of the papers are : — " On the Calyceracea;," 

 " On the Bignoniacea;," " On the History of the Mate Plant," " On Villaresia," 

 "On CExtoxicum," "On Bursinopetalum," "On Goupia," "On Ephedra," 

 "On the Tricuspidarise," "On some Heliotropiese," " On Cortesia and Rhab- 

 dia,'' " On the Ehretiacese," and " On the Cordiacese." 



The first eight fasciculi (41 to 48) of the second volume of Jordan and Four- 

 reau's ' Icones ' have reached us. They contain 40 plates (201 to 240 of the 

 entire work'), but none of the plants treated of come within the scope of the 

 British flora. They are species of Urginea, section Squilla (the well-known 

 officinal Squill is subdivided into four), Saxifraga, Bi/ssoptis, HyacintMia (five 

 species made out of the West European orientalis), and Santolina. 



Part 2 of the third volume of Mr. Wilson Saunders's ' Refugium Botanicum' 

 has appeared. It contains a mouograpli, by Mr. J. G. Baker, of the sections 

 Ledehoii/ria and Drimiopsis of the genus Scilla, the fii'st containing 28, and the 

 second 4 species. The 24 plates (tab. 169-192), representing vai'ious new or 

 little known species of Liliacece, are by Mr. Fitch, and, it is needless to say, 

 admirable. 



At a meeting of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in January 

 last, Mr. Tliomas Meehan referred to iiis former observations that the so-called 

 leaves of Conifer<B were but phylloid branclilcts, and tliat the real leaves existed 

 chiefly in the form of adnate scales. In some Coniferce these adnate leaves had 

 the power of elongating into free foliaceous awns. The Larch was an instance. 

 In Piniis this had never been noticed. He now exhibited specimens of Pinus 

 serotina, in wJiich the leaf-scales under each fascicle of pliylIoida> had deve- 



