BOTANICAL NEWS. 135 



fessor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Buchanan Wliite, 

 F.B.S.E., President of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. 



The Folkestone Natural History Society, which has lately issued " A List of 

 the Macro-Lepidoptera occurring in the neighbourhood of Folkestone," with 

 copious notes by Dr. Knaggs, has in preparation a list of the Flowering Plants 

 and Ferns of the district, on the same plan. 



The Duke of Argyll, Secretary of State for India, has sanctioned the publi- 

 cation of a ' Flora Sylvatica, or Forest Gruide for Northern India,' uniform in 

 size and type with the colonial Flora series. The execution of the work has 

 been entrusted to Dr. J. L. Stewart, F.L.S. ; it wiU comprise a quarto volume 

 of plates. 



Dr. Stenhouse has published in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' 

 (February 24, 1870), notes of some recent investigations made by him on the 

 acids obtained from Usnea harhata, Uvernia prunastri, and Cladonia rangi- 

 ferina. lie establishes Hesse's form\ila of the composition of usnic acid, viz. 

 CjgHigO^, and he gives the characters and composition of Sodium usnate and 

 Calcium usnate. From Evernia prunastri he obtained usnic acid, identical in 

 composition with tliat from Usnea. The proportion and composition of ever- 

 nic acid and of tetrabrom-evernic acid are given. Dr. Stenhouse proposes to 

 call the acid he obtained from Cladonia rangiferina, in 1848, cladonic acid. 

 He had hoped to subject this to a more careful examination, and procured for 

 this purpose a quantity of this Lichen from the hills in the neighbourhood of 

 Moffat, in Dumfriesshire, collected in the beginning of last December. To his 

 surprise, however, he found that it contained scarcely a trace of cladonic or 

 any similar acid. The quantity of acid, or even its presence in Lichens, may 

 depend upon the period of year when the specimens are gathered. 



Dr. Aug. Husemann, of Thur, and Dr. Theod. Husemann, of Gottingen, 

 have conjointly published the first part of a handbook intitled ' Pflanzenstoffe,' 

 for the use of medical men, chemists, pharmaceutists, and pharmacologists. 

 It is published by J. Springer, of Berlin, and D. Nutt, of London, and will be 

 completed in three parts. 



Mr. A. Ernst sends us an acceptable reprint of some biographical notes on 

 A. Bonpland, which he read before the Natural History Society of Caracas in 

 November last, and dedicated to his friend Dr. Seemann. These notes are well 

 put together, but might be advantageously enlarged by a perusal of several 

 original letters from Bonpland himself, which Humboldt published in va- 

 rious volumes of the ' Bonplandia,' and by the direct communications relat- 

 ing to the last days of Bonplaml by the Prussian envoy, M. von Giilich, printed 

 in the same periodical. Mr. Ernst also forwards to us his edition of Senor 

 Benites' ' Principios para la Materia Modica del Pais en forma de diccionario,' 

 printed at Caracas in 1869. Seuor Benites' shortcomings in botany are less 

 felt from Mr. Ernst adding in this edition a correct list of the species mentioned 

 in this first attempt at a Materia Medica of Venezuela ; but it would have been 

 better to expunge the incorrect names altogether than give a corrected list of 

 them in an appendix. 



