134 THE .70URNAL OF BOTANY 



and the various copies, including the original three-quarter length 

 portrait now at Versailles, though in a somewhat poor condition ; 

 and showing that the Lapland drum in the Hoffman portrait, and 

 on the lap of the foreground figure in the engraved title-page of the 

 Flora La])pojiica, is a magic drum, and not a hotanic press. Mr. 

 S. T. Dunn read a paper entitled "A Eevision of the Genus Actinidia 

 Lindl." The genus comprises twenty-four climbing shrubs with 

 a peculiar floral structure. The name, which is derived from the 

 Greek word axrn;, a star, refers to the remarkable aiTangement of 

 the numerous styles, which radiate, like spokes of a wheel, from 

 the summit of the ovary. The appearance is striking, and is only 

 paralleled by the gyncecium of Dillenia. The species inhabit the 

 whole of the far east of Asia, from Japan to the Malay Peninsula, 

 and extend to Sumatra and Java. The genus has presented some 

 difficulty in the separation and grouping of its species. This 

 difficulty is to a great extent removed when the facts of the dis- 

 tribution of the various species are collected and compared, for 

 the genus is found to be naturally divisible into sections, which 

 present a well-marked gradation both in floral and vegetative 

 characters, as well as in geographical range. The question of 

 systematic position has from the beginning been an open one — 

 Bentham, in Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum, placing 

 it in Ternstrcemiacece ; while Gilg, in Engler and Prantl's Pflan- 

 zenfamilien, makes a separate section for it in Dilleniacece. On a 

 comparison of the actual characters by which it differs from each, 

 it is found that in its versatile anthers, its numerous seeds, and 

 moderate (not minute) embryo it differs from all known Dillen- 

 iacece, ; while the only character by which it differs from all 

 TernstroemiacecB is the presence of raphide-bearing cells. Its close 

 connection with Saurauja and Glematoclethra, genera still more 

 closely allied with Ternstramiacece, taken in connection with the 

 above evidence of its leaning towards that Natural Order, seems 

 to support Bentham's view. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on March 2nd, 1911, 

 Mr. E. M. Holmes showed a specimen of Griffithsia globifera 

 J. Ag. from Milford Haven; Mr. Cotton remarked on the spread 

 of some of these alien algae in our waters. Mr. H. W. Monckton 

 thereafter showed a series of lantern-slides from photographs 

 taken during his visit last autumn to Sweden as a delegate on 

 behalf of the Society to the International Congress of Geologists, 

 especially those taken at Upsala, some of which showed places 

 connected with Carl von Linn6, including a front view of his 

 house in the old Botanic Garden. Dr. B. D. Jackson then showed 

 a supplementary series of lantern-slides, chiefly from old prints, 

 concerning the history of the old Botanic Garden. He stated that 

 when Linne and Rosen had exchanged Chairs in January, 1742, 

 and the former had thereby become prefect of the garden, he took 

 immediate steps to rearrange the garden, provide glass-houses, 

 and rebuild the house attached, which belonged to the prefect. 

 The last slide showed the old poplar close to the entrance, the only 

 specimen which can be regarded as coeval with Linne, inasmuch 



