BOTANICAL NEWS. 271 



C. E. Browne. " Notes on British Gerania" By Mr. F. P. Balkwill : 

 drawings and a short account of their fertilization. " A' Memoir on the Sper- 

 mogones and Pycnides of Crustaceous Lichens." By Dr. Lauder Lindsay. 

 lUustrated with figures. Mr. Balkwill exhibited a dried specimen and draw- 

 ing of a monstrous specimen of Plantago lanceolata, showing the not unfi-e- 

 quent change of bracts into leaves. 



§otamcaI g^tos. 



If raycophagy does not become the fashion, it will not be the fault of its ad- 

 vocates. Last mouth we called attention to Dr. Bull's papers in the Woolhope 

 Club's Transactions, and now the indefatigable Mr. W. Robinson has p\iblished 

 a book urging further cultivation of Agarics, ' Mushroom Culture, its Extension 

 and Improvement' (Warne), which, besides embodying the cream of most of the 

 various recent publications on the subject, is illustrated by some excellent figures 

 by Mr. Worthington Smith, who possesses, as our readers are aware, an exten- 

 sive knowledge of the structure and qualities of the objects which his pencil so 

 faithfully j)ortrays. 



We think it right to call special attention to the paper by Dr. Bastian, 

 printed in Nos. 35, 36, and 37, of ' Nature,' and we look to the cryptogamista 

 especially to examine the organisms produced in the fluids experimented upon, 

 and determine their real nature ; figures of such bodies must always be un- 

 satisfactory. A propos of figures and ' Nature,' the illustrations to Mr. Jack- 

 son's papers on Coffee and Tea, in Nos. 33 and 37, are so insufficient and below 

 the standard of the present time as to degrade the periodical. It is better to 

 abstain from illustrations, unless some conveying accurate information are 

 forthcoming. 



It is with great satisfaction that we see the new part (vol. ii. part 3) of 

 Willkomm and Lange's ' Prodromus Florse Hispanica;,' which concludes the 

 gamopctalous Orders. 



The English translation of Baillon's Memoirs on the Natural Orders of 

 Plants has been entrusted by Lovell Reeve and Co. to Mr. N. M. Hartog, 

 and will be revised by the author. The first volume is to contain the Orders 

 RanunculacecB, Dilleniacece, Magnoliacece, Anonacece, MonimiacecB, and Rosa- 

 cece, and will be published in the autumn ; tiie whole book is estimated to ex- 

 tend to eight volumes, the price of each to be 25*., or to subscribers to the 

 whole, 21*. 



Dr. M. T. Masters' new edition of Ilcufrey's ' Elementary Course of Botany ' 

 is published. 



Mr. Jackson, of the Kew Museum, has published a useful paper in the 

 ' Gardener's Chronicle,' on the germination of Palms. This is properly de- 

 scribed in none of the text-books of botany commonly in use, though well 

 understood by botanists. The peculiarity consists in the end of the cotyledon 

 remaining in the seed, whilst its stalk is pushed out, carrying with it the ra- 

 dicle, which germinates in the usual manner at a little distance from the seed. 



