174 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



hitherto unknown; on the other it adds to the information we 

 possess relative to the distribution of forms already brought 

 within our ken. It is obvious that to obtain lasting results in 

 both these departments, careful examination of literature is neces- 

 sary ; for if the distribution be insufficiently stated, one knows 

 that records have been missed, and this being so, descriptions also 

 may have been overlooked. When they are given, the references 

 to distribution are usually trustworthy, but this can scarcely be 

 said of all of them, as the few instances which follow will show. 

 Thus we are told that the West African Dictyandra arborescens, 

 found by Dr. Mildbraed in the Beni district, has not been met 

 with hitherto so far to the east, whereas its range has been known 

 for some years as extending to Uganda. Again, Gardenia tigrina, 

 said to have occurred previously only in Angola, has also been 

 recorded as a Uganda plant. Heinsia pulchella, too, known as an 

 East African species with a range as far south as Gazaland, is 

 mentioned as hitherto from West Africa alone, and more strange 

 still, Bandia octomera as only from the Congo, whereas it was 

 originally described from a plant raised from Fernando Po seeds, 

 and Nigerian specimens have for years been in our herbaria. 

 Again, Afromendoncia is not restricted to West Africa, two species 

 being members of the Madagascar flora ; neither has Crossandra 

 guineensis been found hitherto only on the West Coast, as we are 

 told, for both Dr. Bagshawe and Dr. Wollaston obtained it in 

 Uganda, and the discovery was, in each case, duly published. 

 Moreover, Thunbergia fasciculata and Dicliptera macidata have 

 both been previously recorded from Uganda. Incidentally, it may 

 be remarked that the plant here supposed to be Helichrysum 

 declinatum Less., found by Dr. Mildbraed in Euanda and said to 

 occur also in the Masai highlands, is most probably its honio- 

 plast Gnaphalium unionis Sch. Bip. The former, which is re- 

 stricted to South Africa, so closely mimics the northern plant that 

 without dissection it is virtually impossible to distinguish the tw 7 o. 

 When, however, we remember the large amount of literature 

 bearing on the Tropical African flora already extant, a few slips 

 like the above may easily be pardoned in a work which adds so 

 much to our knowledge. Its sixty-seven plates and the forty-six 

 inset figures of Hepaticae will doubtless be very helpful in future 

 research. Dr. Mildbraed and his coadjutors have fairly earned 

 and are hereby offered our heartiest congratulations. 



S. M. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on April 17th, Mr. 

 Edmund G. Baker gave an account of some British varieties 

 of the Bee Orchis, Ophrys apifera Huds. He stated that in the 

 typical form of the Bee Orchis the labellum is broad convex, with 

 a terminal, reflexed appendage, brown-purple, disk spotted with 

 orange-yellow. In 1840 Hegetschweiler, in Die Flora der Schiveiz, 

 described and figured Ophrys Trollii, a plant with the middle lobe 



