NOTICES OF BOOKS. 373 



" Rosa micrantha, Briygsii. 15tli July, 1883. — J. W. White. 

 ' i?. micrantha, Sm., y&r. pedunculo-imdu, of which Bn</(jsii, Baker, 

 is only a luxuriant form. I find this variety of ndcrantha growing 

 spontaneously in some of the hedges very near the house where I 

 write this.' — T. E. Archer Briggs. ' Two years ago I sent to the 

 Club fruiting specimens of this rose, which had been determined 

 by Mr. Briggs himself. Other botanists, however, considerod it to 

 be a form of R. sepiwn, and wished for examples in flower by which 

 to settle the question. These are now supplied.' — J. W. White. 

 ' R. sepium, var.' — J. G. Baker. 



" Rosa sepium. Buckden, Hunts, 5th Sept., 1884. — W. E. 

 Linton. ' This rose, with its very short peduncles, differs from the 

 next [preceding] (^micrantha, v. pedunculo-nuclo). It cannot be the 

 typical R sepium of Thuillier's M. des Env. de Paris, which work 

 I know, and the description of R. sejnum has " fructibus oblongo- 

 ovatis.'" — T. E. Archer Briggs. Passed by Mr. J. Gr. Baker. This, 

 as Mr. Briggs rightly remarks, has not the fruit of the original 

 sepium, but it seems best placed under it ; it is less different than a 

 curious form that occurs in Surrey, which M. Crepin seems inclined 

 to refer to a rare continental species, but which has all the essential 

 general characters and growth of sepium.. Herr von Uechtritz, to 

 whom I sent Surrey examples of this form, considered it repre- 

 sented Thuillier's ' sepium, inodor a, Fr.,' but I cannot agree with 

 him in either reference, but at present I know not what name to 

 give these Surrey specimens." 



Another puzzling group of plants, the Hieracia, is being taken 

 up energetically by the Messrs. Linton, who send " a fine series " 

 each year, and to whom we would venture to suggest that a set 

 should be placed in the British collection of the National Herbarium 

 at South Kensington, so as to be available for public reference. 



One lesson to be learnt from the Eeports is that greater care is 

 requisite in applying the names of continental forms. Many 

 names have crept into our books on grounds which we fear would 

 hardly be tenable if the plants to which they have been assigned 

 could be compared with the types : and several of these are cor- 

 rected in the Eeports. Perhaps Mr. Bennett carries caution a 

 little too far when, apropos of a plant named by Mr. Beeby Care.v 

 xanthocarp)a, he says, "I think he is probably correct, but I have 

 not seen a type-specimen of Degland's plant, and in Carices I 

 should decline to name any specimen decisively until I had." But 

 the error, if error there be, is on the right side. 



We notice that Mr, Bennett adopts an unusual spelling — 

 Goodenourjhii — for the specific name of the Carex which British 

 authors write Goodenovii; the strictly accurate spelling, however, 

 is Goodenowii, that being the form of the word employed by Gay in 

 establishing the species (Ann. Sci. Nat. 2nd s. xi. 191 (1839) ). 

 Mr. Bennett points out that Goodenough's name teretiuscula (1794) 

 is ante-dated by Eoth, who (in 1788) called the plant C. diandra : 

 according to Nyman, however, who sets it aside as " nomen 

 erroneum," the name is to be attributed to Schrank (1781). 



A large number of typographical errors mar the appearance and 



