462 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



The Sun- Children'' s Budget is a new sixpenny "Botanical 

 Quarterly," under the editorsliip of (Miss?) Phoebe Allen and 

 Dr. Henry W. Godfrey. Miss Allen is anxious "to kindle a 

 spirit of good fellowship between its readers and the Sun-Children 

 — i.e. Flowers," and it is further intended to serve "as a vehicle 

 for conveying botanical instruction in fancy dress." Miss Allen, 

 we note, is already known to fame as the "Author of * Playing at 

 Botany.'" "Besides Papers suitable for Readers from Six to 

 Sixteen (in which they are invited to compete for prizes), the 

 Magazine contains Serial Articles for Adults," to be contributed 

 by "well-known Writers," the first two of whom, Dr. Dyer and 

 Mr. Francis George Heath, are better entitled to the qualifying 

 adjective than some of the others mentioned. 



Judging from the October number, there is some room for 

 improvement in matters botanical. " Alba Lawsonia" is new to 

 us, and "Euphorbia Cypressia" is not the usual Latin equivalent 

 for the Cypress Spurge ; nor are we familiar with the " yellow 

 arsenic daisies," which appear to be common in Guernsey ; the 

 "Alg^Nostoc" is also odd. We should hardly have thought it 

 necessary to take "spud in hand" for the purpose of collecting 

 sundews, which Miss (?) Allen was fortunate enough to find "each 

 bearing its crown of white flowers." The " Sun-Childreu," like 

 other children, indulge in chat, as well as in very weak jokes, and 

 " Calluna vulgaris " writes her history. 



We have received the " Report and Transactions of the South 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies for 1898," which contains, 

 among other interesting papers, a presidential address by Mr. G. S. 

 Boulger, a paper by Dr. H. F. Parsons "on the nature of the soil 

 in relation to the distribution of plants and animals," and a sug- 

 gestive article by Mr. E. M. Holmes on " Botanical work wanting 

 workers " : this last includes a list of mosses and scale-mosses 

 which should be looked for in Kent, and should stimulate local 

 research. The Union has a "Botanical Research Committee," 

 from which much useful work may be expected. 



Attention was called in this Journal (1895, p. 26) to the 

 appearance of Part I. of General Paris's Index Bnjologicus (Paris : 

 Klincksieck, Dec. 1894), and reference was made to the widely felt 

 want of some such work, by the help of which the existing genera 

 and species of Mosses might readily be ascertained, and their 

 descriptions found and synonyms traced. For our synopses were 

 published so long ago, and the descriptions of new species created 

 in the meantime are so numerous and so widely scattered, that it 

 had become a task of infinite labour to gather together all the 

 recognized constituents of a given country's moss-flora, or, indeed, 

 to turn up the description of a given species. 



In his Index Bnjologicus, General Paris has made a courageous 

 and industrious attempt to extricate us from our difficulties, and to 

 supply a ready guide to the literature of all known Mosses, and a 

 clue to lead us through the perplexing and tortuous mazes of 



