BOTANICAL NEWS. 95 



amongst the inhabitants of hot, wet ones. From information 

 through Mr. Spruce, it seemed probable that the Eain Tree was 

 Pithefolobiiim Saman, £ind the so-called "Eain" the fluid excreta 

 of Cicadas which fed on the juices of the foliage. Other trees, 

 however, might become "Ram Trees," and the whole phenomena 

 was comparable to the production of honeydew from the Lime by 

 the agency of Aphides. 



BotauKal NtbJ!$. 



The editor of the reprints of Gerard's ' Catalogus' and Turner's 

 * Libellus,' Mr. B. D. Jackson, has issued a circular proposmo- a 

 " Turner Printing Club," having for its object the re-issue, in 

 fac simile, with notes, of early and very rare publications in Natural 

 History. A small subscription, half-a-guinea, is suggested, in the 

 hope of securing a wide support for the scheme. It has our com- 

 plete approval, and we know of no more competent and useful 

 editor than Mr. Jackson for books of this special kind. His addi-ess 

 is 30, Stockwell Road, S.W. 



The Society of Apothecaries, wdiicli has for more than two 

 centuries done its best to encourage botanical pursuits, has now 

 instituted prizes in Botany for guis. The examination, consisting 

 of oral and written questions on the structure and physiology of 

 j)lants, and their classification and descrix)tion, so far as such 

 subjects are treated of in Hooker's ' Primer ' and Oliver's ' Ele- 

 mentary Lessons,' will be held on the third Wednesday and Friday 

 in June ; and candidates, who must give evidence of being under 

 twenty years of age, must send in then- names, fourteen days 

 before, to the Beadle, Apothecaries' Hall, Blackfriars. 



One of the greatest botanists of the time has passed away in 

 Elias Magnus Fries, the honoured and venerable Professor in the 

 University of Upsala, who peacefully ended his long life on Feb. 

 8th, having exceeded but a few days the hundredth anniversary of 

 the death of his great predecessor Linnaeus. As we hope to be 

 able to give our readers a memoir of the life and work of Fries, it 

 is not necessary to now do more than remind them that he was 

 born in 1794 (15th August), and that his labours in botanical 

 science, which in their character are worthy of comparison with 

 those of Brown, extended over a period of more than sixty years, his 

 first communication bearing the date of 1814, and his mental vigour 

 and capacity remaining to the close of his life. 



We have also to record the death of Senor Joaquim Correa de 

 Mello, of Campinos, Brazil, which occurred on December 20th, 

 1877. He was a very observant botanist, and has contributed 

 several papers to the Journal of the Linnean Society on the tropical 

 plants growing in his neighbourhood. 



