BOOK-l^OTES, IfEWS, ETC. 95 



applications o£ botany as Avell as the pure science. A circular letter 

 sent to representative overseas botanists elicited replies in favour of 

 holding such a Congress. The matter was considered at a meeting of 

 British botanists at the Linnean Society's rooms on January 28, and 

 a circular letter has also been sent to a number of botanists who were 

 unable to be present at that meeting. In view of the somewhat 

 divided opinion among home botanists as to the desirability of 

 holding a Congress in the present year, and having in mind a sugges- 

 tion from a prominent overseas official botanist as to the advisability 

 of holding a British Botanical Congress simultaneously with the 

 proposed British Empire Exhibition in September 1921, the Execu- 

 tive Committee have recommended postponement until that date. 



The Essex Naturalist (xix. part 2 ; July 1919-Feb. 1920) con- 

 tains an interesting paper by Mr. Percy Thompson " On an Annotated 

 Copy of liichard Warner's PlantcB Woodfordienses .'''' Mr. Thomp- 

 son shows that the notes are in the hand of Benjamin Meggot Forster 

 (1764-1829), whose plants are in the collection of his better-known 

 brother Edward, now incorporated in the British Herbarium at 

 Cromwell Road. The history of the volume is traced, and the MS. 

 additions are printed, with facsimiles of two pages of Warner's book 

 and two of B. M. Forster's letters ; the whole is the result of full 

 and careful investigation. The part also contains the conclusion of 

 Mr. Miller Christy's paper on Samuel Dale, and a Presidential Address 

 " On some Water-Plants " by Miss Lister — an excellent example of 

 a paper which is at once popular, scientific, and of local interest. 

 We note that Alisma natans " grows in more than one of the 

 [Epping] Forest j)oiid^s, introduced probably by the agency of a 

 botanist" — the same, it may be assumed, who was responsible for 

 the introduction of Actinocarjms to various localities. Mr. Henry 

 Whitehead has a note on the Huhl in the Essex herbarium. An 

 account of the October fungus foray contains the description of a 

 new species — Marasmius ohtiisifolius Rea. 



We have received, somewhat late for notice, two papers published 

 by M. E. L. Gerbault in the Bull. Soc. d' Agriculture Sciences et 

 Arts de la Sarthe which should be of interest to British botanists. 

 The earlier (1916) deals with Sedum micrantlium Bast., which has 

 been usuallj^ considered by British authors (Hooker, Babington, etc.) 

 as a variety of 8. album, but in Lond. Cat. ed. 10 was raised to the 

 rank of a species. M. Gerbault shows that the two plants may be 

 satisfactorily distinguished by habit, leaves, and flowers, and adds 

 figures explaining the text. S. micrantlium differs from S. album 

 in being smaller in all its parts, by its more spreading dichotomy, its 

 shorter blunter and less compressed leaves, more rounded sepals and 

 more globular buds, smaller seeds, etc. In vol. xlvi. (1917-18) the 

 author treats exhaustively of the forms of Uanunculiis refens, of 

 which he distinguishes six subspecies : Bernao'dii, latifolius^ Des- 

 portesianus, angustifoliiis, scriptus and reptahundus — the last 

 already described as a species by Jordan, lately admitted as British. 

 Distinguishing characters are taken from habit, leaves, hairs, sepals, 

 petals, nectaries and stamens ; the author has gone very carefully 

 into the more minute differential points, as to which the sketches and 

 plates are of great assistance. — C. E. S. 



