528 Gironides of Science. [Oct., 



■what we are accustomed to in England, from the park-Uke aspect 

 which prevails in the higher and clearer portions ; even in the 

 valleys there are no tree-ferns nor jDalms, and hut few orchids, 

 mosses, or herbaceous ferns. The water and hog-plants, in par- 

 ticular, belong largely to European genera, as Nymphiea, Drosera, 

 Potamageton, Alisma, Cyperus, Scirpus, &c. ; while the forest- 

 trees are entirely difl'erent. Mr. Ball enumerates between thu'ty 

 and forty of these, the timber of which is more or less valuable. 



Lichens of New Grenada. — MM. Triana and Lindig have 

 brought up the number of species of hchens in New Grenada to 

 467, of which 98 belong to the European flora. The saxicole 

 species are generally more cosmopolitan than the terrestrial or 

 corticole species; according to Nylander a large number of the 

 European saxicole lichens inhabit also, in the tropics, the summits 

 of mountains, while the terrestrial or corticole species are almost 

 always more characteristic of the cryptogamous vegetation of the 

 country which they mhabit. From New Caledonia, Dr. Nylander 

 announces 220 species of lichens. 



The Palms of Equatorial America. — Mr. E. Spruce pubhshes, 

 in the 'Journal of the Linnean Society,' the results of his researches 

 among the palms of Equatorial South America during the years 

 1849-1860, between 7^ South and 5° North latitude, including 

 descriptions of a large number of species not found by Martins or 

 Wallace. Mr. Spruce's investigations of palms have led him to 

 the somewhat singular conclusion that the hermaphrodite and self- 

 fertilizing structure of plants is an earlier development, which has 

 gradually advanced to the higher type of unisexuahty. 



Botanical Exchange Club. — In the Eeport of the London 

 Botanical Exchange Club for 1868, Mr. Boswell-Syme includes 

 much information interesting to the collector of British plants. 

 Messrs. A. Gr. More and C. Bailey record the appearance of ^c/rpws 

 parvulus on mud flats, at the mouth of the river Avoca, in co. 

 Wicklow. The only previously recorded British habitat was near 

 Lymington, in Hampshire, where it was believed to be extinct. 

 Aster salignus, previously recorded by Miss Edmonds, from the 

 shores of Derwentwater, appears to have been observed in that locality 

 for the last thirty years. Mr. Boswell-Syme has revised his sub- 

 division of Ranunculus aquatilis, as given in * English Botany,' 

 and now makes only two sub-species, R. peltatus and stenopetalus, 

 the former including the forms vulgaris, Jiorihundus, and iiseudo- 

 fluitans, the latter heterophylhis, Droutttii, and trichophyllus. 

 Mentha NouJetiana, sent from Gloucestershire by Dr. St. Brody, 

 appears exactly intermediate between M. sylvestris and viridis. 

 Mr. H. C. Watson has established that the so-called Chenopodium 

 pseudo-hotryoides is nothing but an accidental form of C. ruhrum. 

 Potamageton Jiliformis, not previously recorded from Fife, has 



