THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society held on June 20th, 

 a paper by Messrs. W. West and G. S. West was read, "On 

 the Freshwater Algae of Ceylon," founded on material collected 

 by Mr. W. G. Freeman in 1896-97 at various localities in the 

 island. Representatives of almost all the families of Freshwater 

 Algae were obtained, and two of the collections were especially 

 rich in DesiiiidiecB ; altogether 395 species were collected. The 

 Desmids observed were essentially tropical in character, and not 

 very dissimilar to those of Northern India, Burma, Singapore, and 

 some of the East India Islands, a noteworthy feature being the 

 presence in Ceylon of a large number of species which occur in 

 Madagascar. There was also a. marked resemblance between the 

 algal flora of Ceylon and that of Northern Queensland, and the 

 only two species known from Hongkong were each found both in 

 Ceylon and Queensland. The investigation of these collections 

 had resulted in the discovery of some sixty new species, many of 

 which deserved special mention on account of their extraordinary 

 forms. Messrs. George Massee and E. S. Salmon communicated a 

 paper " On Coprophilous Fungi." " Mr. N. E. Brown read a paper 

 entitled "A Revision of the Genus Hi/peiieojjhi/Uutn, with Notes on 

 certain allied Genera of Compositce.'' After pointing out that the 

 genus tlijpeiicophijlluni had been founded by Steetz on a remarkable 

 plant collected by Peters in Portuguese East Africa, and that spe- 

 cimens of it were so rare in collections that much misapprehension 

 prevailed regarding it, he remarked that Bentham had united it 

 with the genus Jamnea Pers. An examination, however, of the 

 material now available had demonstrated that this view was 

 •untenable; he regarded Hypericophylliini as quite distinct from 

 Jaumea in its distribution, habit, and appearance; in the pos- 

 session of glands in its leaves and tissues ; and in its remarkable 

 pappus, the hooked bristles of which appeared to be unique in this 

 order. He therefore proposed to restore this, with three other 

 genera, to their former generic rank, and furnished a key to their 

 distinctive characters. In addition, he described a new species 

 [H. scabriduiii) from British Central Africa, whence specimens had 

 been received from Nyassaland between Kondowe and Karonga, from 

 the Manganja Hills, and from the Shire Highlands, near Blantyre. 



Dr. Oscar Loew has discovered a new enzyme, which he has 

 called Catalase. He found that an extract of tobacco-leaves retained 

 the power of decomposing hydrogen peroxide after the other known 

 enzymes had disappeared. He was thus led to investigate the sub- 

 ject, and found the new enzyme, which exists in two forms, soluble 

 and insoluble. Its chief property is its catalytic action on hydrogen 

 peroxide, and it is of universal occurrence, as Dr. Loew has proved, 

 both in the higher and lower plants In the various metabolic 

 changes in the cell, a substance such as hydrogen peroxide would 



* [This is apparently the paper by the same authors printed in the Annals 

 of BotcDiij iov June, but no reference is there made to its having been read 

 before the Linnean Society.— Ed. Joukn. Box.] 



