258 



retain undisputed possession of the popular name, calling our 



own Platamis by the almost equally well known and suggestive 



title of "Buttonwood". 



" The Botanist:' — Being the Botanical Part of a Course of Lee- 

 tures 171 Natural History, Delivered in the University of Cam- 

 bridge, together with a discotirse 07t the Prificiples of Vitality y 

 by Benjamin Waterhonse, M.D., Boston, 1811. H. B. Small. 



(Ottawa Nat. iii. 58-62). 



Excerpts from lectures dehvered about a century ago, and said 

 to be the first botanical lectures delivered in America. The prin- 

 ciples inculcated read curious enough at the present day. Thus: 

 '* there is a small quantity of vital air in a sac, bladder or parti- 

 tion at the big end of every bird's egg : and we presume there is 

 a small portion of the same kind of fluid in every seed ; or it 

 may be oxygen in a concentrated state, which is afterwards com- 

 bined with caloric in the process of incubation.'' Again: "From 

 numerous well conducted experiments, it appears that a mucilage 

 produced by the decomposition of vegetable and animal recre- 

 ments, constitutes the food or aliment of plants. This aliment 

 is formed from stable manures, from rain water putrefied, from 

 dew, as well as from dead animals and vegetables. To reconcile 

 the doctrine taught by some, that salt is the active principle m 

 manures, it should be remembered that putrefaction has two sta- 

 ges; the first converts animal and vegetable substances into a 

 mucilage, and the second converts that mucilage into one or 

 more species of salt," etc., etc. 

 Trees and Shrubs of San Diego County ^ California. C. R. O^' 



cutt. (West Am. Sci. vi. 64, 65). 

 Violets — Sterility of, Thos. Meehan. (Bot. Gaz. xvi. 200)- 

 Vitis palmata, C. S. S. (Garden and Forest, ii. 340, Fig. il8)- 

 Vitis ptcrophora. Baker. B. Stein. (Gartenflora, t. 1273). 

 Volvox — The polar Differentiation of, and the Specialization of 

 possible anterior Sense-organs. John A. Ryder. (Anier. 

 Nat xxiii. 218-221). 

 Wheat Rust. PI. L. BoUey. (Bull. Agric. Exp. Station, Ind. 



No. 26). 

 Zygopcialum brachypetalum, var, stenopetalum, E. RegeL (Gar- 

 tenflora, t. 1277/ 



