J300IV-X0TES, NEWS, ETC. 343 



wc arc not without hope that some day the Kew Bulletin will pro- 

 vido its pag-0-headings with something more informing than the 

 number of the page, which from the first has occupied the centre. 



The Proceedings of the Royal Societij of Queensland (xxxiv. 

 no. 1 ; Aug. 25) contains a " Contribution to our Knowledge of the 

 Flora of ra])ua (British New Guinea)," by C. T. White, F.L.S., 

 (government liotanist of Queensland. The collections on which the 

 paper is based were made bj the author in 1918 ; the enumeration is 

 ])receded by general notes on the vegetation and a brief history of 

 botanical work in Papua, which began with Macleay's collections in 

 1875 ; a useful bibliography is appended. Numerous new species are 

 described : Mr. White has had the help of Mr. Spencer Moore in the 

 Ruhiacecb and Acanthacecs ; the Marantacece and Zinf/iheracecB 

 have been undertaken by Mr. H. N. .Ridle3\ 



The Kew Bulletin (no. 7) contains a revision of the South 

 African species of Diantlius by Mr. Burtt Davy : seventeen species are 

 enumerated, of which five are new. We note that Mr. Davy recog- 

 nises the identity of D. incurvus Thunb. (179-1) with D. alhens Ait. 

 (1789), but retains Thunberg's name on the ground that as it "has 

 been familiar to students of South African botany for sixty years, no 

 good purpose would be served by restoring Alton's name." This is 

 the old " plea of convenience " which we thought had been aban- 

 doned. 



Included in the current number of the Bulletin of the French 

 Mycolo(jiQal Society (Tome xxxviii. Fasc. 2, 1922) are an obituary 

 notice of Emile Borquelot, the well-known pioneer of investigation of 

 tha chemistry of fungi, and five papers on the subject of fungus 

 poisoning. Dr. L. Azoulay has three papers : two on measures for 

 preventing fungus-poisoning, including a proposed new law, and one 

 contradicting erroneous assertions in books and newspapers on the 

 edibility of fungi. Dr. J. Offner contributes an account of poisoning 

 b}" dried fungi, and Drs. Dalmier and Oliveau a report of three 

 simultaneous cases of poisoning by Amanita jpantherina. An in- 

 teresting contribution is that by L. Dufour on the prolific appearance 

 of certain fungi after a fores b lire. — J. E,. 



Me. William R. Maxon (Contrib. U.S. National Herbarium, 

 vol. xxiv. Washington : 1922, pp. viii. 33-G3, 10 plates) in the 

 seventh of his Studies of Tropical American Ferns publishes a 

 valuable revision of the North American species of Alsophila of the 

 subgroup A. armata with a key and four species. Other items of 

 interest are: — a singular new Alsophila from Panama; notes on 

 Dicranopteris ; the Jamaican species of Cheilanthes ; two new 

 species oi Polystichum from the West Indies; Atalopteris, a new 

 genus of dryopteroid ferns from the West Indies ; three new species 

 of Dryopteris, subgenus Stiymatopteris. Atalopteris Maxon and 

 Christensen, is characterised by dimorphic fronds, and is nearly related 

 to Fsomiocarpa Prosl and to Olenitis, a subgenus of Dryopteris. 

 It contains but two species. — A. Gr. 



