BUOK-ISUTES, iNEVVS, ETC. 1-57 



formed of current work. By nuiny, the issuing- of the Review will 

 be regarded us by far tlie most important of tlie Bureau's proper 

 f mictions. It is too early to judge as to how efficiently the work 

 will be conducted, but in the first three numbers to hand the 

 abstracts seem highly satisfactory. The " Honorar}" Committee of 

 Management *" is remarkable for the almost complete absence of myco- 

 logists, but it is to be congratuhited on being able to produce a 

 monthly abstract journal of 32 pages at the remarkably cheap price 

 of 12s. per annum post free. — J. K. 



The Journal of the Linneaii Society {Botaut/, vol, xlv. no. 304: 

 March 31) contains an account of the Gynmosperms {Austrotaxus, 

 gen. nov.), Ferns, and Mosses collected in New Caledonia in 1914 by 

 Mr. 11. H. Compton ; a paper " On the Leaf -tips of certain Mono- 

 cotyledons " by Mrs. Arber ; an account of the mosses of the 

 WoUaston expedition to Dutch New Guinea, 1912-13, with others 

 from British New Guinea, by Mr. H. N. Dixon ; and a note on the 

 fertilization of Ceplialanthera by Colonel Godfery. In this the 

 author thus modifies the conclusions which he published in this 

 Journal for 1920, in a paper entitled " Ceplialantliera Kichard or 

 Epipactis Crantz ? " : "1 then," he writes (p. 71), " adopted Darwin's 

 view and said : ' Ceplialantliera is a decadent genus which has fallen 

 from its high estate, assuming that it is really the case that it is 

 entirely self-fertilized, and that we have not simply so far failed to 

 understand the mechanism of the flower.' I had then had no oppor- 

 tunity of studying the fertilization of ensifolia and ruira. Now 

 that I have done so, I am convinced that both these species are 

 wholly cross-pollinated by insects, and that this is also the case 

 occasionally with c/randiflora, though its subsequently acquired 

 facult}^ of self-fertilization has now become the dominant factor in 

 its reproduction. 1 do not now believe there has been any decadence 

 or degeneration in Ceplialanthera, but that it presents a case of 

 persistence to the ])resent day of an extremely ancient method 

 of cross-pollination which possibly prevailed universally in the Orchi- 

 dacea3 (except in Diandrce) in the remote jDeriod before a rostellum 

 had been evolved in that Order." 



We take from the Times the following account of the late 

 William Beechcroft Bottomley, until recently Professor of 

 Botany at King's College, who died at Huddersfield on March 31, 

 at the age of fifty-eight : " The only son of Mr. J. Bottomley, 

 of Fern Cliffe, Morecambe, he was educated at the lioj^al Grammar 

 School, Lancaster, and King's College, Cambridge. Appointed science 

 tutor and lecturer on biology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School 

 in 188Gat the age of 23, Mr. Bottomley continued in that office until 

 1S91, when he succeeded to the professorial chair of biology at the 

 Ivoyal Veterinary College, London. Two years later, on the retire- 

 ment of Professor Bentley, he became Professor of Botany at Kinp-\s 

 College, London, an office which he held until ill-health caused his 

 retirement last year. Intensely interested in agricultural co-o]Deration, 

 Professor Bottomley was the founder of the South-Eastern Co-o]iera- 

 tive Agricultural Society, but it was by his experimental research in 

 the use of ' bacterized ' peat as a stimulant and fertiliser that he has 



