192 BOTANICAL NEWS. 
allowed to retire. A few days ago the Government granted his request, and 
at the same time awarded him the highest superannuation allowance the rules 
of the Civil Service allowed. This is handsome, and as it should be. There 
has not been a more faithful and Ari nter publie servant than Mr. Smitb, 
who filled the office of Curator of the Botanic Garden for nearly half a cen- 
tury, and whose love for plants and niri for botany are equalled only 
by the readiness with which he is wont to impart the information which his 
long practical experience has enabled him to accumulate Mr. Smith gave up 
his charge on the 16th of May, and, at the time of the transfer, the garden 
was in the best possible order. His successor is, strangely enough, a name- 
sake, Mr. John Smith, of Syon House. The late Curator will now have qe! 
of time to devote to the completion of his pteridological publications. At th 
stage of Mr. Smith's A: it may not be out of place to remind our 
that he has originated several iniportanit questions which still agitate dé scien- 
tific world, for Fatih: that of parthenogenesis in anges and the systematic 
value of venation and vernation in Ferns, all of which will be found in the 
following publications : — 
Observations on the Cause of Ergot: read before Linn. Soc. in 1838, and 
published in their Transactions.—Notice of a Plant which oe perfect 
seeds without any apparent action of pollen, with figure of plant and analysis : 
read before Linn. Soc. in 1839, and published in Transactions. (This w as the 
first and original notice of Celebogyne, and tlie plant was here pane —An 
arrangement of the Genera of Ferns: read before the Linn. Soc., and published 
in several vols. of Hooker's ‘ Journal of Botany.’—Enumeratio Filicum Philip- 
and descriptions of new genera and species: published in the Appendix to the 
Bot. Mag. for 1846.—Enumeration of the Ferns of Panama, Western Mexico, 
and Hongkong, with observations and descriptions of new species: in See- 
, mann's Bot. of the Herald. (Here the scheme of arrangement by vernation 
ous plant, from Natal. Hook, Journ. Bot. 1854.— Cultivated Ferns, or a Cata- 
logue of the Indigenous and Exotie Ferns cultivated in British gardens, with 
characters of the Benera, principal synonyms, etc. Pamplin, 1857.—(New 
edition in preparatio on. 
We rejoice to receive the concluding part of Hooker's ‘Species Filieum ' and 
the first section of the fifteenth volume of De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus,” contain- 
ing the Laurinee, Begoniacee, Datiscacee, Papayacee, Aristolochiacee, and 
Stackhousiacee. 
