Botany. 377 



imagination. The archway thus formed continued for about half a mile, 

 occasionally interrupted by an opening in the fall of recent lava, caused by 

 some projecting rock or elevation on the precipice above. — Ellis's Mission- 

 ary Tour through Hawaii. 



BOTANY. 



31. New Botanical Publication. — Dr Hooker and Dr Greville are en- 

 gaged in preparing for publication a work with numerous Figures, in folio, 

 upon the New or Rare Species of Ferns, under the title of Icones et De- 

 scrij)liones Filicum Rariorum, §c. The engravings will be executed in the 

 same style as those in De Lessert's Icones Selects, and Humboldt's Nova 

 Genera ; and the descriptions will be entirely in Latin. The first part is 

 in a state of considerable forwardness. 



32. Lemna minor and gihba. — The high degree and long continuance of 

 the temperature of the summer of the present year has had an obvious in- 

 fluence upon vegetation ; and in no respect more remarkably than in the 

 flowering of various plants. The singular genus Lemna, whose species are 

 most rarely to be seen in flower in any part of the kingdom, and indeed 

 were very long a desideratum in the botanical world, has been peculiarly 

 favoured. We are not aware that the flowers have ever been observed in 

 Scotland ; but on the 24th of July Dr Greville discovered those of both 

 the above named species, in great abundance, in the ditch at the west end 

 of Duddingston Loch. Lemna gibba has been seen in flower, we believe, 

 in Great Britain, only by Mr Borrer, who observed it at Lewes, in Sus- 

 sex. The stamens in this species do not appear together ; the second 

 rarely becoming visible till the first has passed away. It appears to be 

 certain, that temperature alone has influenced the flowering of these 

 plants, as Dr Greville has regularly examined the same spot for several 

 preceding years without success. 



33. Si) sterna Orbis Vegetahilis. — A work under this title has recently been 

 commenced by the learned and ingenious Swedish philosopher Fries, in 

 which he proposes to arrange the whole vegetable kingdom, according to 

 the views entertained by him, Dr Nees ab Esenbeck, and some other na- 

 turalists. Our readers will recollect that the doctrines of affinity and ana- 

 logy are very carefully studied and distinguished by the promoters of 

 those views ; and it is certain that they have already contributed not only to- 

 wards a more philosophical arrangement of natural bodies, but one also more 

 tangible in practical investigation. M. Fries is well known by his labo- 

 rious work on the Fungi : a tribe of vegetables, indeed, holding a low scale 

 in creation, but capable of illustrating the advantages of the system pur- 

 sued by the author. " M. Fries," observes Mr W. S. Macleay, " has been 

 able to give so connected and symmetrical an outline of what he considers 

 to be the natural distribution of Fungi, as, at least in my opinion, to merit 

 the careful attention of zoologists as well as botanists." In the 11th volume 

 of the Linnwan Transactions, Mr Macleay has successfully proved the same 

 laws to be applicable to the natural distribution of insects; and more re- 

 cently, in the same Transactions, Mr Vigors has extended them, in an able 

 manner, to the orders and families of birds. 



In the present work, M. Fries confines himself to the genera ; which he 

 intersperses with numerous and valuable observations. The first part, re- 



