lU:^ BOTANICAL NEWS. 



soil Prof. H.G.Reiclieii bach, is given iu the 'Gardeners' Chronicle' 

 for May 3rd. 



It is intended to organize a Botanical Congress at Brussels 

 next year at the time of the great national fetes which are to take 

 place in 1880, and the Botanical Society of Belgium has already 

 commenced to take the necessary preliminary steps. 



We are glad to give publicity to the request of Mr. A. Bennett 

 that any botanists who can contribute information on the botany 

 of Surrey, additional to that already published, will forward their 

 notes to him at 107, High Street, Croydon. It is proposed to 

 issue a Supplement to the existing ' Flora,' and it is probable 

 that the Holmesdale Club at Reigate will undertake it. 



Dr. Edouard Bornet, of Paris, the eminent algologist, and 

 Prof. H. G. Reichenbach, Director of the Botanic Gardens, Ham- 

 burg, especially distinguished for his knowledge of Orchids, have 

 been elected foreign members of the Linnean Society of London. 



We see with pleasure that the great services to the Australian 

 Colonies of Baron Von Mueller have been again publicly recog- 

 nized by the bestowal of a Knight Commandership of the order of 

 S. Michael and S. George, of which he was already a Companion. 

 Among the numerous claims to the consideration of botanists 

 which Dr. (now Sir)Ferd. von Mueller's publications, in all depart- 

 ments of the science, during the last thirty years, have afforded, 

 his share in the great ' Flora Australiensis,' now completed with 

 the 7th volume, must not be overlooked. Though the whole of 

 the species described in that remarkable book were independently 

 w^orked out by Mr. Bentham, yet the great assistance he received 

 from Dr. von Mueller is gratefully acknowledged by him in the 

 preface to the last volume, where he also thanks him for the 

 regular transmission, " arranged for each volume, of the vast stores 

 of Australian specimens collected by his own exertions, as well as 

 by the able collectors he has employed, and the numerous residents 

 and other correspondents whom he had inspired with a love for 

 the science." Over 100,000 specimens were thus sent over, 

 mostly previously examined, and many also published in the ten 

 volumes of the ' Fragmenta.' In this serial publication, which 

 still continues, 650 species have since been added to the ' Flora.' 

 During the collection of this immense herbarium, from which 

 about two-thirds of the localities given in the ' Flora' are derived, 

 more than 27,000 miles have been traversed by Baron von Mueller 

 himself during the past thh'ty years, and thousands of letters 

 written to corres^Dondents in all i)arts of the Australian colonies. 



We also observe that Mr. I^entham's valuable services to the 

 l^ritish Colonies by the elaboration of the ' Flora Australiensis 

 and other Colonial Floras, have been acknowledged in a similar 

 way, and that he is gazetted C.M.G. 



William Richardson of Alnwick, one of the oldest members of 

 the Exchange Club, and the discoverer in England of Psfuiiuui 

 haltica in 1871 (see ' Journ. Bot.,' 1872, 21 & 315, died, iu his 

 80tli year, on April 19th. 



