BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 149 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



The news of the death last year of t\\ r o prominent Canadian 

 botanists — father and son— has only lately reached us. John 

 M lcoun, who died on July 18 at his residence in Sidney, Vancouver 

 Island, British Columbia, was horn near Belfast on April 17, 1882, 

 and came to Canada with his parents in 1850. In 1882 he became 

 professor of Natural Science at Belleville, Ontario, and naturalist of the 

 (It'i (logical Survey of Canada. He published numerous papers on 

 Canadian plants, including a report on those collected during the 

 Canada Geological Survey under Dr. Robert Bell in 1877—81, of 

 which he presented a large number to the National Herbarium ; in 

 connection with the Survey appeared his most important work — a 

 Catalogue of Canadian Plants in seven parts (1883-1902), in which 

 he was assisted for the Mosses by N. C. Kindberg. Macoun, who 

 was a good all-round naturalist and an ornithologist of note, lived in 

 Ottawa until 1912, when failing health caused him to move to the 

 milder climate of British Columbia ; here he continued to work until 

 his death, especially at mosses and fungi. His eldest son, James 

 Melville Macoun, was born in Ottawa in 1862, and died there in 

 January, 1920: he assisted his father for about forty rears and 

 became botanist and chief of the Biological Division of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey ; in 1899 he published a List of the Plants of the Pribilof 

 Islancls, which he visited in 1891 and 1897. For much of this 

 information we are indebted to a notice by R. M. Anderson in the 

 Journal of Mammologi/ for February last. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on April 7th, Mr. Horace 

 W. Monckton read a paper "On the Distribution of Taraxacum 

 erythrospenmnn Andrz., in the South-east of England." The author 

 explained that he had for some years noticed a small form of 

 Dandelion with deeply cut leaves and red seed growing abundantly 

 on a football ground at Wellington College, Berkshire. It belono's 

 to a group of varieties named erytlirospermum. The geological 

 formation is Upper Bagshot Sand (Barton Beds). He had seen the 

 same variety on the similar sandy soil of Puttenham Heath, Surrey 

 (Lower Greensand), on the Thames Gravel near Old Windsor, Berks, 

 and on walls at West Drayton and other places. It is not confined 

 to areas of sand or gravel, for he exhibited specimens from the 

 London Clay of Ashtead Common, near Epsom, Surrey. He had 

 also found the same variety on the North Down at Ranmore Common, 

 near Dorking, which is in the Chalk District. The chalk does not, 

 however, form the surface at that place, there being a covering of 

 some thickness of clay, sand, and stones (mapped "Clajr-with-Flints"). 

 The only example of the red-seeded variety which he happened to 

 have seen growing actually on a chalk soil w T as in a field between 

 Leatherhead and Headley, Surrey. It is a larger plant than his 

 other examples and is determined by Dr. Druce as T. lacistophyllum 

 Dahlst. 



At the same meeting Mr. Reginald A. Malby gave a lecture on 

 " A miniature Alpine Garden from January to December," illustrated 

 bv a long series of lantern-slides, mam r of them coloured. 



