NEW PUBLICATIONS. 163 



raents were, no doubt, designedly repeated by Herbert Spencer, to show 

 that they admitted of a different explanation. More direct confirma- 

 tion of his views was afterwards obtained in other ways. The state- 

 ment in 'How Crops Grow' (p. 323), that "in the younger parts of 

 plants the course taken by coloured liquids when absorbed (as in 

 Unger's experiment, etc.) proves that they ascend much more readily 

 by the vascular than by the cellular tissues," adopts Unger's facts as 

 identical with Herbert Spencer's, while rejecting, which is quite justi- 

 fiable, his theoretical explanation of them. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer, 



geto ipublications. 



Ilet GedacJd Diplantherci, Banks et Sol. Door Dr. RuD. H, C. 



C. SCHEFFER. 6 pp. 



This is a reprint of a paper dated Buitenzorg, October, 1869, which 

 seems to have appeared, judging from the type, etc., in a recent num- 

 ber of the ' Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie,' and 

 which comes to us direct from Batavia. In it the author endeavours to 

 show that the genus D'qjlantJwra, of Banks and Solander, whose syste- 

 matic position had been variously intei-preted, is Bignoniaceous. The 

 discovery of a new species (Z). Bancana, Scheff.) in the Banka islands, 

 and some specimens of the Australian species (Z). tetrajjhylla) enabled 

 him to work out the generic character and position of the genus. 

 But the author is unaware that several years ago the Bignoniaceous 

 nature of Biplanlhera was pointed out by Dr. Seemann, in this Journal ; 

 that subsequently Dr. F. von Midler (Journ. of Bot. 1867, p. 212) 

 published a note confirmatory of that view, and that Mr. Bentiiara, 

 in the fourth volume of his Austr. Flora, p. 540 (1869), gave it the 

 sanction of his authority, and enumerated the genus amongst the Big- 

 uouiacece. But though Dr. Scheft'er has thus been anticipated, it is 

 gratifying to find that he has arrived independently at the same re- 

 sults as those that have gone before him in this inquiry. The new 

 species, like the Australian one, has only four fertile stamens, without 

 the rudiment of the fifth — characteristic of the New Caledonian one 

 {D. speciosa, Seem.). 



