BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 191 



We are glad to welcome a botanical publicatiou from Ireland, 

 in the shape of Notes from the Botanical School of Trinity College, 

 Dublin. This first number contains a very interesting account of 

 the Herbarium of Trinity College, from tlie pen of its Keeper, 

 Prof. Perceval Wright, and two papers by Mr. H. H. Dixon, his 

 assistant, on the chromosomes of TAlium lonciijiorum and the 

 nuclei of the endosperm of FritiUaria imperialis — each illustrated 

 by a plate. Perhaps we may, at some future date, publish some 

 extracts from Prof. Perceval Wright's paper: meanwhile it is 

 useful to have on permanent record this account of the Dublin 

 Herbarium, which the present Keeper has done so much to render 

 accessible. 



Maemaduke Alexander Lawson, Director of the Botanical De- 

 partment, Ootacamund, died at Madras on Feb. 14th. He took his 

 M.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1864, and was appointed in 

 1868 to the Professorship of Botany at Oxford — a post which he re- 

 tained until 1882, when he accepted the Indian appointment which 

 he held until his death. He was at one time much interested in 

 British plants, and contributed to this Journal a paper on the Flora 

 of Slcye (Journ. Bat. 1869, pp. 108-114) ; he also paid some atten- 

 tion to Mosses, and enumerated (in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. ix. 452) 

 those collected by Robert Brown (Campst.) in Greenland. He 

 monographed the Combretacem and Mijrtacem for the Flora of 

 Tropical Africa (vol. ii. pp. 413-439: 1871), and the Celastrinea, 

 BhamnecE, and AmpelidecE for the Flora of British India (vol. i. 

 pp. 607-668: 1875); but his systematic work can hardly be con- 

 sidered as of the highest order. In 1882 he was chairman of the 

 Department of Zoology and Botany at the Southampton Meeting 

 of the British Association, and delivered an address on the progress 

 of Systematic Botany. He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society 

 in 1869. Since his departure to India, Lawson seems to have 

 devoted himself exclusively to the duties of his oflice, and has not, 

 so far as we are aware, contributed to botanical literature. 



The Bulletin de I'Herbier Boissier for February contains a memoir 

 and bibliography of Jean Mviller, best known to systematists by the 

 abbreviation " Muell. Arg." — Argovieusis (from Aargau, the canton 

 in which he was born) having been affixed to his name to distinguish 

 him from the numerous other botanists bearing the same patronymic. 

 He was born of poor parents at Teufenthal on May 9th, 1828, and, 

 after many difficulties, succeeded in raising himself to a high position 

 in the scientific world. Although of late years mainly occupied with 

 lichens, he published important memoirs on phanerogams — notably 

 on the Eiiphorbiaceoi in De Candolle's Prodromus, on ApocijnecB, 

 Bubiacece, &c. At the time of his death, which took place on 

 Jan. 28th, Miiller was keeper of the Delessert herbarium and 

 director of the botanic garden in Geneva, in which post he is 

 succeeded by M. John Briquet, the author of this memoir. For a 

 full account of the life and work of the deceased botanist we 

 must refer our readers to the Bulletin, where will also be found an 

 excellent portrait. 



