i893- 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 167 



Dr. Kuntze finding himself unable to prepare in time the elaborate 

 critique on questions of nomenclature which he had promised to lay 

 before the International Committee at the end of June, offers to 

 Americans, through the pages of Erythea, a brief syllabus of leading 

 exceptions to be taken to the doings of the Genoa Congress last year. 

 Its resolutions, he says, must fail to obtain the force of international 

 laws by reason of — 



I. Four illegalities in its organisation and methods of 

 procedure. 

 II. Three absurdities, by which the resolutions which they 

 affect become illegal and impracticable. 

 III. Violatio juris gii^siti. 



Is Erythea on the wane ? The last three numbers (May to July) 

 feel very thin, containing only 16, 20, and 16 pages respectively, 

 whereas the journal started with 28 last January, and contained 24 in 

 February and March, while the number rose to 32 in April. 



Two alpine a.nemones, Anemone alpina and A. sulphuvea, are the 

 subject of a notice by M. F. Prevost Ritter, in the Bulletin de rHerbier 

 Boissier, no. 6. The second of these two is generally admitted to be 

 only a colour form of the first, depending on the chemical composi- 

 tion of the soil. H. Christ, in his work on the origin of the Swiss 

 flora, cites them as a most remarkable instance of the influence 

 of the soil on the distribution of plants. In the Alps, he says, 

 the white-flowered form {A. alpina) occurs exclusively on the chalk, 

 while the one with a sulphur-yellow blossom is only found on 

 clayey and sandy soil. So sharp is the limitation, that where 

 the two soils meet the two varieties faithfully follow the line of divi- 

 sion ; while where the transition is gradual, the flower passes by a 

 series of intermediate shades from white to yellow. In order to find 

 out, if possible, the cause of this phenomenon, M. Ritter has, since 

 1886, been cultivating the seedhngs of the two forms in sandy and 

 chalky soils. He finds that, while Anemone alpina prefers the chalk, but 

 will grow in sand, A. sulphurea will only grow in the latter. He also 

 concludes from differences in the shape of the cotyledons, that the 

 yellow-flowered plant must be considered not as a mere form or 

 variety, but as a distinct species. He says, and his figures bear him 

 out, that the seed-leaves of A . sulphuvea are larger, and have a shorter 

 and more rounded tip, while those of the A. alpina are narrower, 

 oblong, and pointed. 



In the Journal de Botanique for July i and 16, M. Hua describes 

 as a new genus a plant from West Tropical Africa, in which the 

 flowers are borne along the midrib on the back of the leaf. 

 This anomalous position of the flowers is only of rare occurrence, 

 appearing in a few almost or quite monotypic genera, such as the 



