320 THE JOUKNAL OF BOTANY 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



We regret to learu that Mr. George Nicholson, who has been 

 at Kew since 1873, has been compelled by ill-health to resign the 

 Ouratorship of Kew Gardens. Mr. Nicholson was at one time a 

 diligent student of British plants, and a frequent contributor to 

 this Journal. Mr. J. R. Jackson, the amiable Keeper of the Kew 

 Museums, with which his connection began in 1858, is also retiring 

 from the service of the Gardens. Mr. Nicholson is succeeded by 

 Mr. W. Watson, the Assistant- Curator, and Mr. Hillier will replace 

 Mr. Jackson. 



Mr. Arthur Smith, of 5, Cavendish Street, Grimsby, Lincoln- 

 shire, asks us to insert the following : — " The Alien Flora of Britain. 

 I am anxious to have notes and records of Alien Plants which occur 

 in Britain, and beg to ask your assistance in the matter. If you are 

 willing to co-operate, I should be glad to have notes of such from 

 your locality, and, as far as possible, specimen plants. Should you 

 have a knowledge or theory how the plant came to its situation, 

 please give it; and in sending plants give names, if known — if not, 

 I will do my best to name them. In any case always give colour 

 of flower." We believe Mr. S. T. Dunn has for some time been 

 engaged on a work dealing with our introduced plants. 



The Gardeners' Chronicle for Aug. 8 gives a list of Selborne 

 plants, " the direct descendants of those which White must often 

 have seen." " The names are not arranged in any order," and the 

 list is thus not easy to consult ; but we note among the names 

 Mimulus liiteiis, which we do not think White is likely to have 

 met with. It will be remembered that a complete list of the plants 

 — 440 in number — actually noted by White as occurring at Selborne 

 was printed in this Journal for 1893, pp. 289-294. 



We should have mentioned earlier the death of the eminent and 

 venerable Japanese botanist Ito Keisuke, which took place at Tokyo 

 on the 21st of January, in his ninety-ninth year. Some account of 

 his work, from the pen of his grandson, Mr. Tokutaro Ito, will be 

 found in this Journal for 1887, accompanied by a portrait : a later 

 portrait and account is given in the Annals of Botany for September, 

 1900. 



Mr. K. F. Towndrow is known as a writer of graceful verse, and 

 now another botanist, Mr. F. T. Mott, puts forward claims to the 

 laurel in a little volume called The Bensclif Ballads. One of 

 these — "A Summer Campaign" — narrates an excursion of four 

 botanists 



" Where the shrubby SiKcda jusfc fringes the land, 

 And Salsola spreads out his thorns on the sand. . . • 

 Where Osmunda sat throned in a leaf-sheltered nook, 

 And the slender CEminthe peered up from the brook. 



" They ransacked the land and they searched by the sea, 

 And brought back their vasculums filled with debris ; 

 Rlnjnchospora alba and Myrica Gale 

 And Triticum repem, the blue littorale.'" 



