208 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



with interest the completion of Drs. Reiohe and Johow's Flora of this 

 by no means the least attractive of the South American Republics. 



E. G. B. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on April 1st, Dr. Dyer 

 exhibited a series of drawings (on the screen) to illustrate the cultural 

 evolution of Ci/danim hitifuUnm Sibth. The species is a native of 

 Greece and the Levant, and is believed to have been first introduced 

 into European cultivation in 1731. In 17G8 Miller described a form 

 modified by cultivation under the name of Cydamen persicum. This 

 name was misleading, as, according to Boissier, neither the wild 

 nor the garden form occurs in Persia. The latter persisted in culti- 

 vation for about 150 years, and about 1860 became the starting- 

 point of the modern races which were illustrated. Cyclamen latifolium 

 has never been hybridized, and it was shown that the striking forms 

 now in cultivation were the result of the patient accumulation of 

 gradual variations. Drawings of the remarkable forms "Papilio," 

 obtained by De Langhe-Vervaene, and of " The Bush-Hill Pioneer," 

 by Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., were shown. It was pointed out that 

 the tendency of the species under cultivation was to lose its dis- 

 tinctive generic characters and to approximate to a more generalized 

 type. The reflexion of the corolla-segments was often lost as in 

 Lysimachia, the segments were sometimes multiplied as in Trientalis, 

 and the margins were fringed as in Suldanella and cultivated forms 

 of Primula sinensis. The "Bush-Hill Pioneer" possessed, in the 

 cresting of the petals, a remarkable character without parallel in 

 any primulaceous j)lant occurring in a wild state. Dr. Dyer also 

 showed a series of plants to illustrate the origin of the garden 

 "Cineraria." It was generally agreed that this had sprung from 

 one or more species native of the Canaries ; it will be remembered 

 that a long discussion on this matter appeared in Nature some little 

 while ago, in which somew^hat conflicting views were expressed. 

 An extreme cultivated form was shown and compared with Senecio 

 cruentus, which Dr. Dyer considered all internal evidence indicated 

 as the sole original stock. S. Heritieri, another reputed parent, 

 was exhibited ; but it was pointed out that this has a shrubby habit 

 and stems markedly zigzag between the internodes, while the leaves 

 are clothed beneath with a dense white tomentum : these characters 

 it transmits more or less to its hybrid ofl'spring. In illustration of 

 this point Mr. Pou's hybrid {S. super- Ileritieri x cruentus) was 

 exhibited (a similar one has occurred at Edinburgh) ; also the 

 Cambridge hybrid {S. su}>er-crueutus x Heritieri). S. cruentus 

 crosses very freely with the garden Cineraria, and as the latter 

 never exhibits any trace of the characters of S. Heritieri, it was 

 concluded that that species had no part in its origin, and that, as 

 in the case of the Cyclamen, the striking development of S. cruentus 

 in cultivation was due to the continued accimiulation of gradual 

 variations. 



