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BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, &c. 



Professor Darbishire's account of Antarctic Lichens (Lichens 

 of the Sivedish Antarctic Expedition, Stockholm, 1912) is full of 

 interest, both on account of the large number of species recorded 

 by him that have found a lodging on that inhospitable continent 

 and of the questions of distribution, which he has discussed with 

 much care. As the author remarks, " there is apparently no limit 

 to the adverse conditions of cold and exposure which lichens can 

 bear " ; it is only necessary that they should remain for a longer 

 or shorter period without snow. They are able to persist by 

 reason of their power to dry up without thereby being killed ; 

 an important factor in their distribution and the only check to 

 their advance over the rocks is the covering of perpetual snow. 

 Up to the present time the most southerly point at which any 

 plant has been found is 78° south latitude and 162° east longitude, 

 where the lichen Lecanora subfusca was collected by members of 

 Scott's Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 at a height of 5000 ft. 

 The distribution of these plants is remarkable. As was to be 

 expected, there is great similarity between the lichens of New 

 Zealand and Subantarctic America and those of the Antarctic 

 Continent, but practically half of the Antarctic plants are common 

 also to the far-away Arctic regions. This accords well with other 

 accounts of lichen distribution, certain identical species occurring 

 on high altitudes over the whole planet, an argument for the 

 great age and fixity of these cosmopolitan plants. Professor 

 Darbishire has divided the territory of the expedition into three 

 districts : Subantarctic America, South Georgia, and the Antarctic. 

 In these, 86 genera of lichens are represented, with 366 species in 

 the first district ; 55 in the second, and in the Antarctic 106, by 

 far the largest number everywhere being crustaceous rock-forms. 

 The hew species are illustrated by photographs. — A. L. S. 



Intelligence has reached us of the death of Edward 

 Horace Swete, M.D., D.P.H., in his eighty-sixth year. Dr. 

 Swete appears to have passed through his medical curriculum 

 at Bristol, and he became the first Lecturer on Botany in the 

 Bristol Medical School on its institution. At the age of twenty- 

 seven he published the Flora Bristoliensis, which came out in 

 1854. This was a careful compilation, with excellent introductory 

 matter, and mentioned about eight hundred and ten species as 

 growing within a circle of five miles' radius. Providing the first 

 comprehensive account of the plants known in the vicinity of 

 Bristol, the book had considerable local interest, and so continued 

 for many years until work on modern lines was undertaken by 

 another generation of botanists. It is a curious fact that Dr. 

 Swete's pursuit of botany apparently ended with the issue of his 

 Flora. No further note on the subject is known to have been 

 penned by this author. He left the city, practised for a long 

 period at Worcester, and afterwards at Weston-super-Mare ; filled 

 many public offices, and then lived in retirement in Wiltshire and 



