NEW PUBLICATIONS. 61 
and Cambridge, and must be regarded the most valuable contribution 
of last year to local botany. N.O. ME: 
-cu bos The Transactions of the. Linnean Society of London. 
0 bati > or Vol. XXIV. -Part I. 
‘The whole of this Part is devoted to a description of one of the 
most remarkable plants discovered during the present century, and 
called: by Dr: Hooker, in honour of its discoverer, Welwitschia mirabilis. 
The ‘plant is a native of the stony deserts of South-Western Africa, 
abounding about Cape Negro and near Waalvisch Bay. It is woody, 
with an obconie trunk about two feet long, which rises a few inches 
only above the soil, and presents the appearance of a flat, two-lobed, 
and depressed mass, sometimes fourteen feet in circumference, and 
looking like a round table. Welwitschia attains a century in duration, 
and during the whole of this time it has only two leaves, which spring 
from two deep grooves of the trunk, and, when fully grown, are about 
six feet long. The discoverer conjectured that these extremely tough 
leaves, generally split up in numerous longitudinal fragments by the 
action of the wind and weather, are the original cotyledons, and there- 
fore often a hundred years old. As yet this conjecture has not received 
confirmation from actual observation, but it has all negative evidence 
in its favour. To complete the singularity of this production, it has 
cones !—and is, in fact, a genuine Conifera, closely allied to Gnetum 
and Ephedra. : 
~ As soon as specimens reached Kew, Dr. Hooker, with his accustomed 
acumen and energy, devoted himself to the examination of them, and 
the result has been the complete monograph now before us. It has 
. been the botanical event of the year, regarded by phytologists in the 
same light and of the same importance as the restoration of Archeop- 
terye by zoologists. Indeed, we do not overstate the case when we assert 
that no more important botanical paper has appeared in the Linnean 
ansactions since Robert Brown's on Rafflesia Arnoldi. Bi | 
 Welwitschia appears to be the only perennial flowering-plant which 
at'no period has other vegetative organs than those proper to the em- 
bryo itself. the main axis being represented by the radicle, which be- 
Comes a gigantic caudicle, and developes a root from its base and in- 
cence from its plumulary end, and the leaves being the two coty- 
