64 Notices respecting New Books. 
Miller had called C. minor. “We have found it repeatedly on 
the mountains in Cumberland, and have seen it in herbaria 
mistaken for the C. radicans, which is a strongly marked and 
totally distinct species. Recent and authentic specimens of 
this last plant are, however, desiderata to the London botanists. 
The descendants of Dickson’s original plants still survive; but 
whatever might be the authority of the finder, it is still desi- 
rable to have it confirmed. i 
Lamium maculatum wants confirmation even as an English 
plant: much more then does it need to be authenticated 
as found wild in woods in Scotland. Stachys ambigua appears to 
be confined to the North. It is but imperfectly. known among 
Southern botanists ; and that knowledge is derived from dried 
specimens, which in such difficult species are but unsatis- 
factory. The Rhinanthus major is entirely new. For this 
addition we are indebted to a very active and successful bo- 
tanist, Mr. James Backhouse of York, who distinguishes it at 
first sight by its greater size, being two feet high, much 
branched and bushy; its much denser spikes; and its yellow- 
ish bracteas, each of which terminates in an elongated green 
point. The segments of the upper lip of the corolla are wedge- 
shaped and purple. Germen narrower and more tumid than in 
R. Crista-galli. Style prominent. Nectary heart-shaped, more 
spreading, and greenish. The seeds are thick at the edge, 
and not quite destitute of a membranous margin; but this is . 
much narrower than in the former. Ehrhart and Richardson, in 
Dillenius, had previously distinguished the species. The Lin- 
nea borealis seems to be more frequent in Scotland than 
had been imagined, though a single station for it has been 
discovered in England, by Miss Emma Trevelyan, at Hart- 
burn in Northumberland, and recorded in the thirteenth volume 
of the Linnzan Transactions. 
The most considerable alteration throughout the volume 
is to be found in the recasting the genera of the class Tetra- 
dynamia. In this the learned author has in part followed Mr. 
Brown, who was the first to point out the important cha- 
racters afforded by the cotyledons; that is, whether they are 
flat, or folded, or spiral; whether incumbent, lying upon the 
embryo laterally, or, accumbent, their edges on one side meet- 
ing the embryo longitudinally. This Linnean class, which 
comprehends one of the most natural orders throughout the 
vegetable kingdom, furnishes in consequence very obscure 
characters for subdivision. Linnzeus was driven to rely upon 
the nectariferous glands for generic characters, and which, 
after all, did not enable the technical botanist to determine his 
plant; nor did it associate such species as were most nearly 
‘ allied 
