234 AFRICAN BOTANY. 



plant " remarkable for its enormously elongated anthers and long 

 narrow segments." 



More than half of the new part of the Flora Capensis is occupied 

 by Dr. Masters's monograph of the liestiacecE — an order on which he 

 has long been the recognized authority: we note that in the clavis 

 of the order, Camncunois is printed for Caunom.uis. Mr. Clarke begins 

 his enumeration of the CyperaceiE, in which the synonymy and the 

 number of localities cited seem greatly in excess of the other orders; 

 a curious inequality in the spaces left between the species — 

 e.g. on pp. 159 and 165 — gives a somewhat untidy appearance 

 to this part of the work. Mr. C. B. Clarke also contributes the 

 Commelinace(B. Mr. Baker deals with the JuncacefB, and Mr. N. E. 

 Brown undertakes the Aroidea, Eriocaulecc, and several small orders. 

 We are glad to find that Mr. Arthur Bennett's help has been secured 

 for the XaiadacecB, an order which he has to a great extent made 

 his own. 



The preface to this part, like that to the part of the Flora of 

 'Tropical Africa, is dated December, 1897 ; the second part of the 

 latter is merely dated 1898 on the cover. In view of the too well- 

 known inconvenience that has arisen from the inaccurate or 

 indefinite dating of books which have appeared in parts, we would 

 suggest to Dr. Dyer the desirability of indicating clearly and un- 

 mistakably on each part of these Floras the exact date of its 

 publication. It sometimes happens that copies are distributed 

 privately before a book is actually published ; and a preface dated 

 December suggests that the actual printing-ofl'and publishing of the 

 work may not have taken place until the following January. The 

 matter is the more important in view of the number of botanists 

 who are now publishing descriptions of African plants ; and the 

 singular laxity which unfortunately prevails in the dating of the 

 Kew Bulletin seems to render this caution the more necessary. 

 Perhaps Dr. Dyer might be induced to extend the precaution we 

 have suggested to the Icones, of which his name also stands as editor. 



The continuation of Mr. Hiern's Catalor/ue of Welwitsch's plants, 

 which was published in April, although smaller than its predecessor, 

 contains a larger proportion of novelties, for the most part among 

 FiuhiacecB of which more than a third are new. Among them are 

 four genera — Campylochiton Welw., a Combretaceous genus which 

 Mr. Hemsley had united with Cacoucia; and three Rubiaceous 

 genera [Pentacarpa^a, Justenia, and Chalazocarpus. A new name for 

 the order OliniacecB — Plectroniacece — is of necessity introduced, as 

 Mr. Hiern, for reasons which appear conclusive, retains Linngeus's 

 name Flectronia for the genus which coustitutes the order. He 

 says :^" There seems little doubt but that Linn^Tsus had a specimen 

 of the genus under consideration when he described Plcctronia for 

 the Mantissa (1767), for his description and the specimen in his 

 herbarium, subscribed in his own writing with the name Plectronia 

 veittdsa, now at the Linnean Society, both establish this view ; he, 

 however, complicated the matter by quoting a plate from Burmann 

 of a plant in fruit which appears to belong to Canthinm in Fiuhiacece, 

 though he implied that he had not seen the plant figured in Bur- 



