122 Historical Sketch of Improvements in [Aug. 



which he describes 15 species. Sir J. E. Smith has also investi- 

 gated the genus Tofieldia, which was in fact the real and original 

 anthericura of" Linnsus in the first edition of his Genera Pian- 

 tarum. In the second edition he combined it with the bulbine 

 of his first edition, and this confusion was continued in all his 

 subsequent works : but the English botanists, Alton, Brown, 

 and Hudson, laboured to unravel the confusion thus introduced. 

 Smith now enumei'ates six species of tofieldia, of which only one, 

 T. palustris, is a native of our island. Linn. Trans. 



Juncece. — An excellent monograph of the British junci and 

 luzulte, in which 21 species of the former genus and 8 of the 

 latter are described, is published in the Linnasan Transactions, 

 from the pen of Mr. Bicheno. 



Aroidetv. — C. Kunth, having examined some of the genera 

 contained in this family, has corrected the characters assigned to 

 calla; formed a new genus from the calla ^Ethiopica of Linnaeus, 

 under the name of Richardia ; and restored the genus arisarum 

 of Tournefort. Mem. Mks.w. 



Piperacece. — The situation proper for pepper in the natural 

 arrangement of plants has been a subject of doubt; but it is now 

 determined by Kunth, from a consideration of the structure of 

 the embryo, which is truly monocotyledon, that the piperaceae, 

 a family containing at present only two genera, piper and pipe- 

 romia, ought to be arranged among the monocotylcdones, near 

 the aroideae and typhaccie. Mem. Miis. iv. 



Gramina. — But little has been done in respect to this very 

 difficult family; Rafinesque iias, however, described a new genus, 

 which he calls Deplocia. SiU'un. Joiirn. 



And M. Seringe has published in the first volume of his 

 Melanges Botaniques a monograph of the different species of 

 corn cultivated in Sweden. 



Lycopodiacece. — R. A. Salisbury, on examining with attention 

 the lycopodium denticulatum, found the capsule always 4<-lobed, 

 instead of 3-lobed ; and also that he could never distinguish an 

 embryo in the seed, which contains at first a clear liquid ; this 

 evaporates away quickly, and the germination then appears, 

 which approaches much nigher to that of the dicotyledons, than 

 to that of the monocotyledons, especially if the vitellusof Brotero 

 is considered as the radicle. 



Equlsetacecv. — Mr. Stewart, in giving an account to the Wer- 

 nerian Natural History Society of a collection of North Amsi'i- 

 can ferns which he received from Dr. Torry, of New York, has 

 proposed to distinguish a new species of equisetum, he found, 

 among them, and which is intermediate between E. limosum and 

 palustre, by the name of E. torryanum; stem, branched; branches 

 thick, roughish, hexagonal, pressed close to the stem; spike 

 terminal : it differs from the above two nearest species in height 

 and general habit. 



Filices. — Olaf Swartz has described 26 species of filices found 



