^14 SSORT NOTES. 



Botany and conchology were liis favourite pursuits, and he published 

 in both these branches of science. In 1870 he became Conservator 

 of the Botanical Section of the Philadelphia Academy of Science, 

 and did excellent work in arranging and increasing the collections 

 there, which include the herbaria of Schweiuitz and C. W. Short. 

 In conjunction with Mr. E. L. Rand he published in 1894 a Flora 

 of Mount Desert Island, Maine; the preface of this contains the 

 admirable remarks on recent American nomenclature which we 

 reprinted at pp. 19-23 of this Journal for January last. 



"The botanical community of Philadelphia" had previously 

 " met with an irreparable loss " in the death of Dr. J. Bernard 

 Brinton, of whom a biographical sketch, accompanied by a good 

 portrait, appeared in the lUdletin of the Torrey Club for March. 

 This enthusiastic appreciation is the joint production of " a com- 

 mittee of the Phihxdelphia Botanical Club," a society founded by 

 Dr. Brmton in 1892. He was bora near Waynsburg, Pennsylvania, 

 Aug. IGth, 1835, and died at Philadelphia, Dec. Gth, 1894. Brinton 

 seems to have had a good knowledge of plants, and was "very 

 successful in imparting to others his own enthusiasm and love for 

 the study of the natural sciences." He published " but little on 

 botanical subjects," and that little is not specified by the three 

 gentlemen who write the notice, and who maintain a reticence as 

 to Dr. Brinton's first name which we are unable to dispel. 



We would venture to suggest to writers of biographies that 

 certain particulars of those whom they commemorate should 

 invariably be given. The name in full is one of these ; this is 

 omitted, not only in the case of Dr. Brinton, but in that of Mr. 

 Redfield ; in the latter instance the Eoyal Society's Catalogue 

 enabled us to supply the missing name. The place and date of 

 birth and death are essential ; but in the notice of Mr. Thomson 

 which we have cited we are not told where he died, although the 

 date of his decease is given. These omissions do not strike folk at 

 the time !is important, but any one who has had to look up 

 biograpliical notices will know how difficult it is to supply such 

 details after some time has elapsed. We are glad to know that 

 Mr. Daydon Jackson, in the new edition of Pritzel to which he will 

 shortly devote his energies, will follow and extend Pritzel's excellent 

 plan of giving these dates, with references to the principal biographies 

 of each author so far as these can be ascertained. 



SHORT MOTES. 



Melampyrum pratense L., var. hians. — I saw this variety in the 

 woods near the Weir Head on the Taniar, in South Devon, growing 

 with what may be regarded as the type plant, that is, one with a 

 paler corolla-tube; but the distinctions are not so marked as in 

 northern Britain, where whole tracts are occupied with the plant 

 having rich orange-coloured corollas. In other places, especially 

 open heaths, the flower is much paler, and the tube nearly white. 



