116 Historical Sketdi of Improvements in [Aug. 



Sauvagesice, Violacece, Frankenieo'. — A. de Saint Hilaire has 

 published observations on these families in Mem. Mus. iii. 



Sapiiidi. — Five species of melicocca have been described and 

 figured by A. L. De Jussieu in the Mem. Mus. iii. 



Tercbinlacece. — Heterodendrum, a new genus, is constituted by 

 Desfontaines: who has described and fiirured H. oleafolium in 

 Mem. Mi/s. 



Lemiminoscv. — Desfontaines has described and figured three 

 species, all belonging to new genera, constituted by him, viz. me- 

 zoneoron glabrum, heterostemon mimosoides, and ledocarpon 

 Chiloense. Mem. Mus. 



Rosacece. — The corchorus Japonicus of Thunberg, called by 

 Linnagus, rubiis Japonicus, is made by De Candolle into a genus 

 of rosaceae, under the name of Kerria; so called, from Kex*r, 

 the gardener, who brought it and many other plants from China. 

 The tigarca tridentata of Pursh is also removed by De Candolle 

 to tlie rosaceae, and made into a genus by the name of Purshia. 

 Both these genera are to be placed between the tribes of spireae 

 and dryadevn. Linn. Trans, xii. 



Joseph Woods, Esq. has examined, with gi'eat attention, our 

 British roses, and given a detailed description of them. He 

 enumerates no less than '26 species; of which seven are entirely 

 new, namely, R. Doniana, Sabini, heteropliylja, pulchella, nuda, 

 bractescens, surculosa. In the preliminary part of his paper, 

 he shows the necessity of attending to the distinction of the arma 

 of roses, which he divides into aculei, broad at bottom, and ge- 

 nerally hooked; sctai, always straight, and tipped with a gland; 

 glands which are almost always pedicelled, and, indeed, in some 

 species, as in II. Eglanteria, these three kinds of arma pass, by 

 almost insensible gradations, into one another; weak white hairs, 

 -as in R. Borreri : chaffs, as in the axillae of the leaflets of R. spi- 

 nosissima; and lastly, pubescence. The appropriate name for 

 the hip of a rose has not been determined by botanists. Lin- 

 naeus, Smith, and Willdenow, call it the germen, although the 

 latter censures Linnaus for adopting this name. Gaertner and 

 Jussieu describe the genus as having a calyx urceolaris, and some 

 other French botanists call it the tube of the calyx. Mr. Woods 

 calls it the receptacle, and considers the juicy part of a straw- 

 berry as being the inner vessels of this receptacle diluted into a 

 spongy body. The mode of growth of the rose is peculiar: the 

 seedling plants are feeble, and produce only a few flowers, but if 

 they are cut down, or some injury done to the original growth, 

 a strong shoot proceeds from the root or the base of the stem, 

 which rises higher than the original plant, is armed with abun- 

 dance of prickles, and flowers freely at first, but grows weaker 

 as it branches, and requires fresh setting to restore its vigour. 

 Linn. Trans, xii. 



An account of 50 species of Swiss roses is published by Seringe 

 in the first vohime of his Melanges Botaniques. And Mr. Neil, 

 in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, has described the 



