246 HEPORT OF BOTANICAL DEPARTMENT OF BRITISH MUSEUM. 



AcoRUS Calamus {vide p. 163). — In liis account of tlie history of 

 Acorns Calamus, M. Davos has only imperfectly acknowledg-ed how much 

 he was indebted for information to the researches of the late F. Kirschleger, 

 who, in his ' Flore d'Alsace' (1857), not only pronounces decidedly aoaiiist 

 its nativity in the Rhine A^alley, but also applies a large amount of infor- 

 mation collected from the older writers, upon which his opinion was 

 founded. As the merit of tracing the history of the plant in western 

 Europe clearly belongs to Kirschleger, and as his book is very little 

 known in England, it seems worth while translating the following passage 

 from the ' Flore d'Alsace,' ii. p. 211 : — " Notwithstanding this wide distri- 

 bution in the Rhine countries, the Acorns is not spontaneous there. In 

 the sixteenth century this plant did not exist in middle and western 

 Europe, ' Omnino hoc Acoro caremus,' says V. Cordus. Tragus was not 

 acquainted with it. Camerarius only speaks of it as an exotic drug ; he 

 says, " Nascitur in Ponto, Colchide et Galatia." Clusius, in 1574, had 

 received living plants of Calamus aromaticus from Constantinople ; he 

 was then cultivating it in the basins of the Garden of Vienna, where it 

 was fiist increasing, and whence it was being distributed to various 

 European gardens. Similarly, J. Bauliin tells us that in 1590 he was 

 cultivating the Acorns in the garden of the Electoral Montbt51iard, having 

 brought it from the gardens at Stuttgardt, to which it had been intro- 

 duced from the garden of the Margrave of Baden at Pforzeira ; that, at 

 Strasbourg, Melchior was cultivating it in 1591 in his garden, as was 

 also Robin in the Jardin du Roy at Paris. J. Bauhin describes the mode 

 of cultivation in damp sand near the reservoirs and trenches. It appears 

 that Sebitz introduced the Acorus at Strasbourg, and J. Bauhin at i\iont- 

 beliard and at Belfort. From the time of Lindern and of Mappus 

 (1710-1750) it was very abundant in the neiglibourhood of Strasbourg, 

 to such an extent that Mappus was able to write ' Acorus, regiouuni 

 se|)tentrionalium incola, in Gallia non reperitur, quo tamen nostrte 

 Al-iatiae, isti regioni licet vicinse, abunde prospexit natura." Thu*, ac- 

 cording to Mappus, it is Nature, and not the hand of Man, which has 

 endowed our countries with the Calamus aromaticus. Even Haller (in 

 his 'Enumeratio' and ' Historia ') does not seem to question that the 

 Acorus was indigenous ; and even in modern times few florists, such as 

 Dierbach (Flor. Heidelb.) and Schubler (Flor. Wiirtemb.), are satisfied of 

 its exotic origin. By Linnaeus (Flor. Suecica) it is described as growing 

 ' copiose in fossis Scania?,' and by Ledebour in the northern provinces of 

 Russia." — A. G. More.' 



g^ports* 



OFFICIAL REPORT FOR 1870 OF THE BOTANICAL 

 DEPARTMENT OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



By William Carruthees, F.R.S. 



The principal business done in the Department during the year 1870 

 has consisted in the com])letion of the rearrangement in the General 

 Herbarium of the families Graminece and Cyperacecp., in the arrangement 

 of the CycadecB, Fiperacece and Lichenes. In the critical revision and 



