162 NOTES AND COMMENTS [skPTEMBER 
Women_and the Learned Societies. 
AT the recent International Congress of Women in London, Mrs. 
Farquharson of Haughton, in the course of a paper on the work of 
women in biological science, drew attention to the fact that at least 
three of the large scientific societies still refuse to admit women to their 
full fellowship, however fully qualified they may be. These three 
societies are the Royal, the Linnean, and the Royal Microscopical. Of 
these the Royal Microscopical admits women to its membership, but 
refuses to permit them to attend its meetings, while the two other 
societies entirely refuse membership on any terms. Mrs. Farquharson 
dwelt upon the hardship thus entailed upon women in special cases. 
British Botany. 

THAT much still remains to be done in the field of British Botany—at 
any rate among the lower plants—is evident from papers which have 
recently appeared in the Journal of Botany. In the May number of 
the Journal, Mr. Gepp notes the occurrence of no less than four aquatic 
fungi, hitherto unrecorded from Great Britain, which were found growing 
on a broom-handle floating in a reservoir near Shrewsbury. These 
fungi belong to the genera Achlya and Apodachlya, of the family 
Saprolegniaceae ; and there is little doubt that a careful study of the 
native members of this group, on the lines suggested by the writer, 
would result in other interesting finds. 
The July number of the same Journal contains a description and 
ficure of a fresh-water Alga, which forms not only an addition to the 
British flora, but a variety new to science. It is a filamentous green 
Alga allied to the common Cladophora, and forming, like the latter, 
masses of tangled green threads, but of finer consistency and a brighter 
green. It belongs to the genus Pithophora, the history of which is of 
some interest. The genus was founded by the Scandinavian botanist 
Wittrock, on a plant which appeared some years ago in the water-lily 
tank at Kew, and had presumably been introduced from the Amazons 
along with the lilies. Wittrock subsequently described several other 
species from various parts of the world. The original one has long 
since disappeared from Kew, and has not been found elsewhere ; but 
another, the subject of the communication, has recently appeared in the 
Reddish Canal, near Manchester. ‘This canal is a classical locality, 
having supplied a new Chara, and also become the home of an aquatic 
monocotyledonous flowering plant, Najas graminea. The latter is widely 
spread in the tropics of the Old World, and has also long been known 
from Northern Italy, where it is generally supposed to have been brought 
