ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 45 



far-reach i ng method of dispersal. As the result of calculation from the 

 maximum observed distance travelled by a winged fruit of a Dipterocarp 

 (Shorea leprosuld), 100 yards, the writer estimates that the species can 

 spread only 800 yards in 100 years under the most favourable circum- 

 stances, and that a Dipterocarp would take one-and-a-half million years 

 to spread from the Malay Peninsula to the Philippines, supposing that 

 there were a land connection. 



Chinese Flora.* — The issue of the index number marks the com- 

 pletion of an undertaking which has been on hand for nearly twenty 

 years. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer contributes an historical note detailing 

 the vicissitudes of the enterprise in explanation of the delay. Parts I. 

 and II. of the Enumeration, for which Hemsley was directly re- 

 sponsible, were issued in 1886 ; for the remainder the co-operation of 

 various botanists has been enlisted under Hemsley's editorship. Since 

 the issue of the earlier parts our knowledge of the flora has been much 

 enlarged by the work of several collectors, especially Augustine Henry, 

 whose collections reached 15,700 numbers, amounting to some 150,000 

 sheets. The inequality between the earlier and later parts is to some 

 extent remedied by a list, by M. Smith, of the new species published 

 during the progress of the work, and of those previously described 

 whose area has since been found to extend to China. The Index, by 

 Daydon Jackson, of names including synonyms, contains about 17,000- 

 entries. 



Flora of Tropical Africa .t — A further instalment of this work 

 contains the elaboration of several groups of Sympetalae : Hydro- 

 phyllacese, by J. 6. Baker and N. E. Brown; Boraginea?, by J. G. Baker 

 and C. H. Wright ; and the greater part of Convolvulaceae, by J. G. 

 Baker and A. B. Rendle. In dealing with the Convolvulaceae the 

 authors have employed in the determination of the genera and the 

 larger subdivisions of the order, characters derived from the pollen-grain, 

 on the lines suggested by Hans Hallier. 



Botanical Glossary and Encyclopaedia.^: — The new edition of 

 B. Daydon Jackson's " Glossary of Botanic Terms " includes about 

 16,000 numbers, nearly three times as many as in any other previous work 

 in the language. Owing to the original edition, which appeared in 1900, 

 having been stereotyped, the new terms are included in the form of a 

 Supplement ; and for the majority of these the recent American pre- 

 sentment of plant ecology is responsible. The handy form in which 

 the book is published, especially its lightness, in which it contrasts 

 favourably with botanical handbooks generally, adds to its widely 

 acknowledged value. 



Another useful handbook § is owed to a group of botanists at Vienna, 



* Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxxvi. (1905) pp. i.-xi. and 457-686. 



t Flora of Tropical Africa. Edited by Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, iv. sect. 2 

 (1905) pp. 1-192. Lovell, Reeve and Co. 



J Glossary of Botanic Terms. B. Daydon Jackson. London : Duckworth 

 & Co. (1905) 371 pp. 



§ Illustriertes Handworterbueh der Botanik. Edited by C. M. Schneider, 

 with the co-operation of v. Hoehnel, v. Keissler, Schiffner, Wagner, Zahlbruckner,. 

 and O. Porsch. Leipzig: Engelmann (1905) 8vo, viii. and 690 pp., 341 figs. 



