BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 03 



That the protest given above as to new combinations resulting 

 only from literature is not without justification is shown by the 

 following extract from a recent paper by Mr. J. F. Macbride (Contrib. 

 Gray Herbarium, no. lix. p. 33 : Sept. 1919) :— " Mr. G. Claridge 

 Druce, Bot. Exch. Club, v. 38 (1918), has reduced the genus Allo- 

 carya to Lappicla. It is to be regretted that he has not given the 

 reasons which induced him to make this, to say the least, striking 

 reduction, for the genera Allocarya and Lappula are even more 

 distinct than Eritrichium and Lappula., genera universally accepted. 

 It seems almost inconceivable that Mr. \pruce had a specimen of 

 Allocarya before him at the time he referred it to Lappula {L. sti- 

 pitata (Greene) Druce, I. c). Kather does it seem probable that 

 the plant collected as a waif in England was, in fact, one of the 

 annual species of Lappula, although the fact that the determination 

 was made by Dr. Thelling decidedly weakens that theory." 



The Kew Bulletin (no. 10, 1919) contains an account of the 

 arrangements made for the Botanical Survey of the Union of South 

 Africa, to which Miss A. G. Corbishley, B.A., of the University of 

 South Africa, has been appointed assistant at Kew. Mr. W. B. 

 Turrill has a revision of Mendoncia, which now includes twent3^-five 

 species, whereof live are new, and Mr. W. B. Grove continues his 

 enumeration of species placed by Saccardo in the genus Fhoma. 



The Annals of Botany (January) contains a long paper by 

 E. Muriel Bristol " On the Algal-Flora of some desiccated English 

 Soils : an important Factor in Soil Biology " ; there are descriptive 

 notes, with figures, of the nineteen species found, two of which — 

 Ghlamydomonas pluristigma and Gongrosira terricola are new. 

 Dr. Salisbury writes on " Variation in Anemone apennina and Cle- 

 matis Vitalha^ with special reference to Trimery and Abortion '' — 

 a continuation of his observations on Eranthis and Ficaria published 

 last year in the Amials. Dorothy Bexon discusses " The Anatomy 

 of some Polycotylous Seedlings of Centranthus ruher " : and B. 

 Salmi, Professor of Botany at Benares, writes on " Certain Archaic 

 Features in the Seed of Taxus haccata, with Remarks on the Antiquity 

 of the TaxineodP 



The Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical Society of 

 Edinburgh (vol. xxvii. pt. 4) — which, like the Kew Bulletin and 

 several other important publications, makes no use of its page-headings 

 — contains papers by Mr. Arthur Bennett on Calamagrostis strict a 

 and C. strigosa and on the Flora of Caithness, with notes on 

 Hagstrom's *' Critical Researches on Potamogeton,'''' excluding the 

 British species which were discussed in this Journal for 1919 (pp. 10- 

 20), and a note on P. longifolius Gay. Captain W. B. Gourlay 

 writes at length on Vaccinium intermedium Ruthe, on which, with 

 Captain G. M, Vevers, he contributed to the same volume of the 

 Journal an account (p. 259) to which no reference is made. Mr. W. 

 W. Smith establishes a new genus of Gesneracem — Whytockta, 

 commemorating the President of the Botanical Society — for Staur- 

 anthera chiritcefloraOliY., and there are obituaries of Dr. R. C.Davie 

 and W. B. Boyd. 



