160 



BOTANICAL NEWS. 



We take the following from the last Annual Report (read 

 Feb. 17) of the Herts Natural History Society: — "The council 

 regrets that your editor has decided to abandon the editorship of the 

 late Mr. R. A, Pryor's ' Flora of Hertfordshire.' He has devoted a 

 considerable amount of time and labour upon it, in preparing a 

 portion of it for the press, and in the subsequent revision of this 

 portion, comprising the orders Futnnncnl(ice(B, Ijerheridacea, NtjmpJuB- 

 ace(B, Fumariacecv, and Cnicifera. The first sixteen pages are com- 

 plete, carrying the work to the end of NyvipJueacefc, but, judging 

 from the labour involved in achieving this inconsiderable result, 

 your editor considers that the limited time at his disposal will be 

 better bestowed upon other work for the Society. The thanks of the 

 Society are due to Mrs. Pry or for the donation of £20 towards the 

 cost of editing her son's work. Of this a small amount has been 

 expended in the purchase of a few necessary books and the 

 ordnance maps of the comity. The council will endeavour to secure 

 the services of a botanist competent to carry on the work, and who 

 will bring it out in a manner Avliich will do credit to its author, who 

 had an almost unequalled critical knowledge of British plants, 

 combined with a most extensive acquaintance with botanical litera- 

 ture, British and foreign, from before the time of Linnaeus to the 

 present time." We can quite understand and sympathise with Mr. 

 Hopkinson's difficulties in carrying out a work for which, we 

 venture to think, he was not specially qualified ; but none the less 

 do we regret that the Society, which owes much to Mr. Pryor's 

 generosity, should not see its way to carrying out the work to which 

 a great part of his life was devoted. 



Mr. G. C. Druce has issued a prospectus of a ' Flora of Oxford- 

 shire,' which he hoj)es to publish towards the end of the year. He 

 has secured the help of several botanists acquamted with the botany 

 of the county. " The 'Flora' is intended to be not only a cata- 

 logue of the county species, with their localities, but also a history 

 of them, and of the botanists connected with the University and 

 County " ; and the prospectus further states that it will contain 

 " about 400 species and varieties additional to those given by 

 Walker and Sib thorp." The work will be prmted by the Clarendon 

 Press. 



M. a. B. Cole is issuing a series of ' Studies in Microscopical 

 Science' (Bailliere, King William St.), which demands a Avord 

 of notice. The work is issued in three sections ; that devoted to 

 botany, of which only we can speak, is excellently planned and well 

 carried out. 



Mr. F. 0. Bower, of the Normal School of Science at South 

 Kensington, has been appointed Professor of Botany at the Univer- 

 sity of Glasgow. 



