246 
Strasburger was born in Warschau in 1844. He studied in Bonn 
and under Hickel in Jena, was appointed Professor of Botany and 
Director of the Botanic Garden at Jena in 1869, and went to Bonn 
in 1881, where, in the old Castle of Popplesdorf, he founded those 
laboratories which soon became a centre of active histological and 
cytological research. He was awarded the great Gold Medal of the 
innean Society in 1905, and in 1908 was one of the seven recipients 
of the Darwin-Wallace Medal, bestowed by the same Society on 
the occasion of the Darwin-Wallace celebration, the others being 
Wallace, Hooker, Hiickel, Weissman, Galton and Ray Lankester. 
Two Interesting Euphorbias.—The accompanying Plate illustrates 
two fine specimens of Luphorbia Caput-medusae, Linn., and E. mul- 
ticeps, Berger, which have recently been presented to the Royal 
Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
The plant of Euphorbia Caput-medusae, Linn., was collected on 
the slopes of Lion’s Head Mountain, near Cape Town, by Mr. 
Eustace Pillans, and sent to Kew in December last. The specimen 
is 18 inches in diameter and consists of a globose main body about 
6 inches in diameter, covered, except at the very centre, with 
numerous crowded cylindric branches ; these in different individuals, 
vary from 2 to 15 inches long and 3 to 1 inch thick, and are 
covered with obliquely conical tubercles. The flowers are clustered 
at the tips of the branches and are about 4 inch in diameter, with 
: pennant green and white glands and 5 incurved ‘reddish 
ty) 
lobes. 
According to Mr. Alwin Berger this plant is not uncommon on 
the Continent, but no plant of it has been cultivated at Kew nor in 
any collection I happen to have seen during the past 39 years. 
beautiful photograph of it growing wild is reproduced by Dr. Mar- 
loth in Wissensch. Ergebn. Deutsch. Tiefsee-Exped. vol. 2, pt. 3, 
t. 9, but the figure here given is the first and only one that has 
appeared in an English book giving a correct representation of the 
entire plant. 
Very few plants have been more misunderstood than this, for 
There is no specimen preserved in the Linnean Herbarium to prove 
which was Linnaeus’ type, but, as he appears to have seen it 
growing in Clifford’s garden, the cultivated plant would most pro- 
bably be one found growing near Cape Town. The species here 
figured is the only one which grows around Cape Town to which 
the name and description could apply, and as it is recognised there 
as being FE. Caput-medusae, it will be accepted as such for the Flora 
Capensis. Berger in his “Sukkulente Euphorbien,” p. 110, | 
taken the same view of this species, whilst almost all oul authors 
have mistaken other species for it or confused others with it. _ 
_ Euphorbia multiceps, Berger, is one of the most remarkable species 
in the genus, being quite unlike any other Euphorbia or indeed any 
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