BOOK-XOTES, NEWS, ETC. 47 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



ALTHOuaii he did not die on the field of battle, Reginald Philip 

 Gregory may be added to the list of those for whose loss the War, 

 in the prosecution of which he had been engaged since 1915, must be 

 held res^Donsible. In the year named he obtained a captain's com- 

 mission in an officer cadet battalion at Cambridge, and in July 1917 

 went to France with the 1st 6th battalion of the Gloucestershire 

 Regiment. He was badly gassed in the trenches, and never com- 

 pletely recovered ; discharged from the army in October last, he 

 resumed his tutorial work at Cambridge, where he was University 

 Lecturer in Botany, but succumbed on Nov. 24 to an attack of 

 pneumonia following asthma. Born at Trowbridge, Wilts, on June 7, 

 1879, he early took up botanical pursuits under the guidance of his 

 mother, whose name is familiar to British botanists in connection 

 with the genus Viola. Going up to Cambridge, he took first-class 

 honours in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos, and in 1904 

 gained the Walsingham medal for an essay embodying the results of 

 original research in botany. Yv^'e take the following summary of his 

 work from a memoir contributed to Nature (Nov. 28, 1918) by 

 Prof. Seward : — " Mr. Gregory ivas one of a group of students who 

 were stimulated by the teaching and enthusiasm of Prof. Bateson to 

 take up different branches of genetics ; it was mainly with cytological 

 problems that his researches were concerned. His most important 

 contributions were those dealing with the genetics and cytology of 

 giant races of Primula, published in the Journal of Genetics (1911) 

 and in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (1914). His work 

 demonstrated the striking fact that some forms of Primula exhibit 

 the giant character not only in the plant-body as a whole, but also in 

 the constituent cells. The results obtained constituted a definite 

 advance in our knowledge of phenomena connected with the re- 

 duplication of certain terms in a series of gametes. His researches 

 also included the investigation of heterostylism, habit, leaf -form, and 

 flower colour in Primula sinensis, seed characters of Pisum, reduc- 

 tion-division in Ferns, forms of flowers in Valeriana, and other 

 subjects." In Nature for Dec. 12 Prof. Bateson deals more fully 

 with Gregory's work, paying a high tribute to its special interest ; 

 he left a mass of material which it is hoped will be published. 



The Botanical Magazine for Oct. -Dec. contains a figure (t. 8783) 

 and description of Mesemhryanthemum edule L. "from material 

 obtained by Mr. J. Hutchinson on the face of an old quarry at the 

 entrance to Caerthiilian Valley in Cornwall, where it is thoroughly 

 n.aturalized in compan}?- with the Australian and Chilian species 

 M. cequilaterale Haw." The latter is entered by Davey from 

 several places in Cornwall (Fl. Cornw. 204), but the former is not 

 recorded by him. 



Mr, H. W. Moxcktox has prepared for private distribution a 

 nicely-printed little book on The Flora of the District of the Thames 

 Valley Drift between 3Iaidfi7ihead and London — on lines similar to 

 those of The Flora of the Bagshot District noticed in this Journal 

 for 191G, p. 9."). The idea of these geological district floras is to take 



