1866. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology: 259 
Hedera Cuanariensis, described by Professor Babington,* “on old 
white-thorn trees, Phoenix Park, near Dublin;” Rosa collina, 
Jacq., discovered near Plymouth by Mr. T. R. A. Briggs; Huru- 
castrum Pollichii (Hurucastrum inodorum, Reichen.), collected by 
Mr. Joshua Clarke, near Saffron Walden, Essex. 
Mr. F. E. Kitchener sends us a ‘ First List of Flowering Planta 
and Ferns found within Four Miles of the Close, Rugby. Mr, K. 
publishes the list “incomplete, in the hope that additions will be 
sent.” Botanists will be careful to mention the localities in which 
the plants are found, and their “earliest and latest dates of flower- 
ing.” We would suggest to Mr. K., that the next list will be 
improved by avoiding the typographical errors which occur in this 
one, and by the substitution of the Botanical for the English names 
of the Families, as more appropriate and equally intelligible to the 
practical botanists, for whose use this list is printed, 
Mr. J. Miers describes T 69 new species of Cissampelos (Menisper- 
macee,) of which 46 belong to America, 11 to Africa, and 12 to Asia, 
The plants throughout the genus are dicecious, excepting in two or 
three instances where moncecious flowers occur; in one, the sexes 
are found in distinct racemes on the same plant, and in another the 
male and female flowers are on the same raceme (androgynous). 
Mr. M. denies that Cissus Paretra is the normal type from which 
these species are derived, and thinks that “nothing im the shape of 
sustainable evidence has been offered to prove” such a position. 
But supposing it to be true that all these species have thus ori- 
ginated, “if such modifications be now permanent, each confined 
within a limited range of distribution, and we can assign to them 
seyerally constant and determinable characters, then clearly, 
according to the rules of science, they ought to be considered dis- 
tinet and valid species. In determining different kinds of plants, 
the practical botanist should not be guided by any theory of the 
distant origin of species, but should regard them in their present 
forms.” There is some force in these remarks of Mr. Miers. 
Mr. Isaac Seaman, M.R.C.V.8., says that sprouted grain is a 
superior nutritious cattle-food, and “an excellent substitute for the 
turnip and green rape of winter, and the different clovers and 
grasses of summer.” Mr. Seaman affirms that, “during the past 
season, a very large number of lambs have been reared, thousands 
of sheep fattened, and upwards of twenty different flocks restored to 
health, by the use of semi-malted grain.” That semi-malted grain 
should be a nutritious cattle-food is not at all unreasonable, and 
probably owing to the conversion of the starch of the grain into 
sugar, which, for both plants and animals, is more nutritious than 
starch, because more readily absorbed into the circulation.t{ 
* *Journal of Botany,’ December, 1865. 
+ * Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ February, 1866. 
{ ‘ Veterinarian’ for February, 1866. 
