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EDITOEIAL. 



The present seems a fitting opportunity to indicate one or two 

 changes which will be made in this Journal in the coming year. 

 We have nothing sensational to announce, no startling improvements 

 to advertise. Our scope is limited, our aims are humble, though 

 useful ; and the way in which they are carried out must mainly 

 depend, as it always has depended, upon the kind and willing 

 co-operation of those to whom the Journal owes whatever success 

 it may have attained — a co-operation which was never more valuable 

 and readily accorded than at the present time. 



Although botanists may now be congratulated on the possession 

 of another publication devoted to their interests, supported by an 

 eminent and influential staff of writers, and financed in a manner 

 which permits the production of elaborate and expensively illustrated 

 memoirs, the Journal of Botany still remains the only medium of 

 communication in England which appears at regular intervals, and 

 in which immediate publication can be secured. It is, moreover, 

 the recognised record for matters relating to British Botany in its 

 various aspects and branches, and for the placing on record of 

 observations, too small in themselves to attract the notice of the 

 more profound student, but nevertheless worthy of note : the number 

 of systematic papers published in its pages may also be referred to 

 with satisfaction. The ' Annals of Botany,' with its high subscription 

 rate and irregular issue, does not aim at filling the buinbler, but we 

 hope not less useful, position, which we have striven — not unsuccess- 

 fully, we trust — to fill ; and this is shown by the fact that our 

 subscribers have increased rather than diminished in number during 

 the last four years. 



One conspicuous feature of this Journal some years since was 

 the "Botanical News," in which were recorded small matters, often 

 of passing interest, such as come within the keu of those in constant 

 intercourse with fellow-botanists and botanical literature : this we 

 propose to restore. "\Ye also intend to publish, as early in the year 

 as possible, a short notice — on the lines of the 'Biographical List,' 



