464 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



We have received, too late for notice in the present number, 

 the new edition of the Cijhele Bibemica, issued under the editorship 

 of Messrs. R. W. Scully and N. Colgan. It seems to be admirably 

 done. 



Dk. Otto Kuntze has issued another volume of his Revisio 

 Genera Flantuniiii, which contains much interesting and important 

 material. Dr. Kuntze's labours, as it seems to us, meet with some- 

 what insufficient appreciation among English botanists , we hope 

 to publish next month a review by Mr. Hiern of this instalment. 

 Oddly enough, the book seems to have attracted the attention of 

 the Dailij Chronicle, which entirely misapprehends Dr. Kuntze — 

 whom it calls " Kurtze " — and finds in his work only "a curious 

 display of spiteful jocularity." Dr. Kuntze, however, is not re- 

 sponsible for "Mr. Ascherson, of England," of whom the Chronicle 

 speaks. Of the five Latinised names cited by the Chronicle, four are 

 given inaccurately ! 



Newspapers, one cannot help thinking, would do well to leave 

 botany alone, or to take a botanist into their counsel. The Daily 

 Telegraph of Oct. 12th, in the course of an article in the very best 

 telegraphese on "The Rainbow Wonders of Windermere," has the 

 following gem: — "It was rainbows, rainbows, all the way! and 

 what was the cause of this October glory of rainbow flood ? It was 

 nothing in the world but a smooth lake surface, and the fine dust 

 of the pollen of a humble water-plant — some say the pollen of the 

 American water-weed Vallisneria, others aver it is the gold dust of 

 the water-lobelia, which, floating upward through the tranquil 

 water on a calm October day, lies on the surface of the polished 

 lake-mirror with power to change the face of the water into such a 

 refracting and dilfracting medium as to splinter all the sun into 

 irridescence {sic), and unravel the beam of white light into the 

 colours of the prism. It would seem that the water must be of 

 certain temperature to encourage the plant to send forth its prism- 

 makers to the surface." We commend this phenomenon to the 

 notice of Mr. Grant Allen, but we can assure the Daily Telegraph 

 that those who say it is due to " the American water- weed 

 Vallisneria " are hopelessly out of it, if only for the reason that no 

 such plant grows in the lake, or indeed in England out of culti- 

 vation. 



Mr. C. a. Barber has been appointed to the Directorship of the 

 Government Gardens at Madras. 



It may be well to note that the earlier opening of Kew Gardens, 

 which came into force for the summer months, has been suspended, 

 and that the Gardens are now closed until noon. 



The first meeting of the Linnean Society for the forthcoming 

 session will be held on the 3rd of November, when a paper will 

 be read by Prof. H. Marshall Ward on Craterostigma puinilum 

 Hochst., and Messrs. H. and J. Groves will exhibit Nitella hyalina 

 kg., of which an account appears in our present issue. 



