BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 175 



of the labellum narrow lanceolate, elongated, purplish-red in the 

 centre, gold at the edge. The three outer perianth-lobes lanceolate 

 pointed. The plant came from Winterthur. In this country there 

 appear to be a series of intermediate forms connecting the typical 

 form with 0. Trollii, some being more nearly allied to the former, 

 some to the latter. The plant from Eeigate, which has been 

 called Trollii, closely approximates to a figure in Eeichenbach's 

 Icones, vol. xiv. t. 457, fig. II., but it is not very like the plant of 

 Hegetschweiler. The plant, on the other hand, figured by Mr. 

 White in the Flora of Bristol more closely approximates to the true 

 Trollii. There is an interesting note in the Phytologist, n. s. vol. v. 

 p. 175, on some additions to an interleaved copy of Blackstone's 

 " Harefield Plants," formerly belonging to Peter Collinson, stating 

 that three roots of the Wasp Orchis were found at Clifton in 

 1787, the lip being very narrow, yellow streaked with dark purple. 

 There are also plants from Oxford and Lewes which are inter- 

 mediate between the Eeigate plant and that from Bristol. 



* At the same meeting a paper by Dr. Hisayoshi Takeda was 

 communicated by Dr. Stapf on the Flora of Shikotan, the follow- 

 ing being an abstract of his remarks : — Shikotan is the southern- 

 most of the Kurile Islands, which are distributed in the form of a 

 chain between Kamtschatka and Yezo, and lies between about 

 43° 35' and 50' N. and 146° 30' and 55' E. Its area does not 

 perhaps exceed 140 sq. m. The island is hilly, and some of the 

 hills are covered with forests of conifers and deciduous trees, 

 others with dwarf bamboos — species of Sasa. There are many 

 streams along which bogs and swamps are often well developed. 

 The vegetation of this island has hardly been touched by human 

 hands, but left in quite a primitive state. The number of the 

 higher plants known to the author is 324, belonging to 213 

 genera and 62 families, of which 245, including 8 new species, are 

 new to the flora of this island, while 136 species are not mentioned 

 in Miyabe's Flora of the Kurile Islands, published in 1890, and 

 also 58 genera and 8 families are additions to that publication. 

 Composite (34), Graminese (26), EosaceaG (22), Cyperacese (17), 

 Eanunculaceae (14), Orchideae (14), Caryophyllacese (13), and 

 Umbelliferae (12) are families comparatively rich in species. Of 

 the 324 species, 261 (83-0 per cent.) are common to Hondo or the 

 main island of Japan, 256 (79-3 per cent.) to Saghalien, 299 (92-3 

 per cent.) to Yezo, 266 (69-8 per cent.) to the S. Kuriles, and 

 143 (41-4 per cent.) to the N. Kuriles. Thirty-five species, or 10-8 

 per cent., of the Shikotan flora are mainly distributed in the 

 Archipelago of Japan (a few are, however, known to occur but 

 seldom in Corea) ; 8 are endemic in the Kuriles ; 35 are known 

 from Hondo and Yezo, but not from Saghalien ; and 30 occur in 

 Saghalien and Yezo, but not in Hondo. Among those plants 

 which are common to Shikotan (and also other islands of the 

 Kuriles) and Yezo, or Yezo and Hondo, but not found in Saghalien, 

 there are a number of plants which are distributed over North- 

 eastern Asia, the Aleutian Islands, &c. These plants are believed 

 by the author to have been introduced through the Kurile chain, 



