264 TUE JOURXAL OF BOTANY 



production of varieties of British Ferns, on which his hook, Bnfisli 

 Ferns and their Varieties (1910). is the standard authority; he had 

 previously puhUshed a vohiuie on Choice British Ferns and a Book of 

 British Ferns. His studv of these forms led to the discovery of 

 apospory in Ferns, to which he drew attention in papers read at the 

 Linnean Society in 1HS4: and puhlished in the Society's Journal (xxi. 

 354-00). The plants on which his observations were chiefly based 

 were varieties of two siDecies — Athyrium Filix-foemina, var. claris- 

 sima and Poli/stichinn an(julare, var. pulcherrimum. Druery was 

 for many years connected witli the British Pteridological Society, 

 whose Gazette he founded and edited : he was also a prominent 

 member of the Floral and Scien title Committees of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society, which awarded him its A^ictoria Medal of Honour. 



The Kew Bulletin issued in July (no. 2, 1917) contains a mono- 

 graph of the British s])ecies of Phomopsis, a genus " hitherto ignored 

 bv all British mycologists," the separation of which from Phoma was 

 siigs^ested by Saccardo : eighty-eight species are enumerated, some of 

 which are "excluded for the present from the British List" : four are 

 new. Mr. Rolfe clears uj) the history of the Strawberry-Raspberry 

 {Bubtis illecehrosus Focke), a Japanese species with a somewhat 

 copious s^monymy, and also describes some new orchids ; he also gives 

 an account of a collection of drawings made by Mrs. Koss, of Poggio 

 Gherardo, Florence, which has lately been acquired for Kew\ 



In Bhodora for July Mr. C. A. Weatherby w^rites on Impatiens 

 hijl^ra, which he says produces an unusually interesting series of 

 colour variations, in range of hue very similar to those of the garden 

 " nasturtium," Tropceolum majus. The "typical and common form " he 

 describes as having orange flowers wdth more or less numerous, usually 

 crimson, spots. He distinguishes forms to which he gives the names 

 citrina, alhiflora, and immaculata, the characters of which are indi- 

 cated by their names : there is also a form Peasei, which has pink 

 flowers spotted with red : the forms, he says, " show abundant ability 

 to maintain themselves." It would be interesting to know whether 

 similar variation has been noticed in England. 



Ix the course of a story, "Below Zero," in the Windsor Mac/azine 

 for July, Mr. Fred. M. White tells of one Lord Rayburn wdio had a 

 "magnificent collection of orchids." The "gemot the collection" 

 was "of the class Gynandria Monandria — a marsh orchid from South 

 Africa, and the only one of its kind yet discovered." " I prefer them," 

 said his lordship, " to the epiphytes, exquisite as they are : and that, 

 of course, is a cypripedium.'" This allocation of the ]ilant is hardly 

 as obvious as Lord Raynor implies, as it is described as having "' a long 

 s])ike of bloom that shot u])wards a foot or more in height in a series 

 of shaded mauve ])lossoms with centres and cups graded away to the 

 hue of virgin gold: the ex(|uisite mass clung to the stem and trembled 

 like a cloud of butterflies." Later on however the orchid is referred 

 to as "the priceless Gynandria Monoyynia,'''' so it may be presumed 

 that its owner was somewhat doubtful as to the genus, and wisely 

 confined himself to its position in the somewhat obsolete Linnean 

 cUissilication. 



