94 



A NEW BKITISH FLORA. 



will suffice as an illustration — the plant he now calls Lannea 

 Schweinfurthii: the synonymy of this is — 



Odina Schweinfurthii Engl. Mon. Phan. iv. 273 (1883). 



Calesium Schweinfurthii 0. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 151 (1891); Engl. 



in Nat. Pflanzenfam. iii. 5, 153 (1892). 

 Lannea Schweinfurthii Engl. I.e. Naclitr. 214 (1897) ; Bot. Jahrb. 



xxiv. 498 (1898). 



In this last paper Mr. Hiern's new species of Calesimn are forth- 

 with transferred to Lannea ; an application of the " Rochester Code" 

 would restore these to Cahsiam — Dr. Kuntze would write Calesium — 

 and would place Prof. Engler's last species under the same heading. 

 Kew would, we imagine, settle the difficulty by retaining Odina. 



Nor can it be said that possibilities are exhausted. Nothing 

 would be simpler than for the Professor of Botany at some other 

 centre to call his assistants together and formulate a proposal that 

 the time-limit should date from the beginning of the century — a 

 proposal which we have heard broached, and for which something 

 may be said. In that case, he will be able to transfer the whole of 

 the species to Hahoiia — a name published by Dennstedt (Schliissel 

 Hort. Malab. p. 30) in 1818, and based upon the same material as 

 CaJesia))} Adans. 



It may be added that in his latest paper Prof. Engler has done 

 scanty justice to his own synonymy, certain species published by 

 him under Calesium. not being so cited. 



A NEW BRITISH FLORA. 



Our readers will learn with interest that a new British Flora is 

 in preparation. For some time it has been understood that the 

 Rev. E. F. Linton was accumulating material with a view to a 

 work of the kind, but he was not willing that any public announce- 

 ment should be made of the fact. Now however that he has to 

 some extent got the matter in hand, we have his permission to 

 announce that, although some time must elapse before it can be 

 ready for publication, a new Flora has been definitely decided upon. 



The necessity for such an undertaking has long been apparent, 

 not only to the field worker but to the student of books or herbaria. 

 A comparison of the last edition of the London Catalogue with any 

 of our existing floras will make this abundantly clear. Bentham's 

 Randhook, admirable in its way, has never appealed to the critical 

 botanist. Babington's Manual, which in its day revolutionized 

 British botany, is in its latest edition seventeen years old, and it 

 may be doubted whether any revision that was not to a great extent 

 a le-writmg would brmg it into relation with the views of our 

 present-day working botanists. Sir Joseph Hooker's Student's Flora 

 is, and may possibly continue to be, the most generally useful of 

 our floras, but it does not satisfy the student of critical forms. 

 Although it might have been thought that the botany of these 



