BOOK'NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 68 



fertilisation is very carefully described, and a list of the insect 

 visitors to each species is given. If space permit, we hope later to 

 give a summary of this interesting paper. 



The Botanical Gazette is angry with us because we have ventured 

 to extract one or two of the gems of eloquence which have been 

 displayed at the banquet and flower-sermon in connection with the 

 Annual Meeting of the Trustees of the Missouri Botanic Garden, 

 and duly chronicled in the yearly reports. The Gazette says that 

 as these entertainments are embodied in the will of the founder, 

 they have to be carried out. But our objection, so far as we have 

 made any, was neither to the speeches nor the sermon, but to the 

 fact that it was thought necessary to disfigure the excellent Reports 

 by the printing of such rubbish ; and we may presume that the 

 Trustees are coming round to this view, for, as we pointed out 

 {Journ. Bot. 1894, 350), the speeches are omitted from the last 

 Eeport. The Gazette says we have only bestowed "faint com- 

 mendation" upon the admirable papers which make up the bulk of 

 these annual volumes ; but the refutation of this statement will be 

 found in the notices we have published [Journ. Bot. 1891, 308; 

 1892, 283; 1898, 219; 1894, 349). 



Although the useful Enumeration of Chinese Plants is proceeding 

 less rapidly than might be wished, it is gratifying to know that its 

 completion may be looked for at a reasonably early date. The 

 most recent part, issued last June, takes us into the Urticacece. We 

 understand that the Cupuliferm will be elaborated by the Director 

 of Kew Gardens, and that Mr. Rendle will undertake the Grasses. 

 A large number of novelties have been described since the first part 

 of the Enumeration appeared (in 1886), and it is to be hoped that a 

 supplement containing these will be added to the work when it is 

 completed. Mr. Hemsley has decided that the Xanthoxijlum collected 

 by James Cunningham at Chusan, about 1700, and not named in the 

 Emimeration, is a distinct species, and has promised to describe it for 

 this Journal. It is figured by Plukenet (Phijtoi/raphia, t. cccxcii, 

 fig. 1) from a specimen preserved in Herb. Sloane, xciv, 190. 



George Wall, whose death, at the age of seventy-three, took 

 place at St. Thomas's Home, London, on Dec. 18th, 1894, a few 

 days after his arrival in England from Ceylon, had been a prominent 

 resident in that colony since 1846, as, at different periods, a leading 

 merchant, planter, newspaper editor, and member of the Legislative 

 Council. He was an intimate friend of the late Dr. Thwaites, and 

 took up the study of Ferns with characteristic enthusiasm. He 

 formed an extensive herbarium of the Ferns of the world, and was 

 the author of two privately printed pamphlets on those of Ceylon — a 

 Catalogue, "with notes by G. W.," in 1873, and a Check-List in 

 1879 ; and in 1874 he arranged the large collection of exotic species 

 in the Peradeniya Herbarium, adding to it from his own stores. 

 He joined the Linnean Society in 1872, but did not contribute 

 anything to its publications. His name is commemorated in 

 Trichomanes Wallii Thw., published in this Journal for 1885 (274), 

 which is C. P. 3989. Mr. Wall was buried in Bromley Cemetery. 



