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224, BOTANICAL NEWS. 
BOTANICAL NEWS. 
Mr. G. Mann has safely returned to England from Western Africa. 
Dr. Mueller, Director of the Botanical and Zoological Gardens of Melbourne, 
is about to pay a visit to Europe. By last mail, he writes us that a new Podo- 
carpus, allied to P. spinulosa, has been discovered in S.W. Australia, where 
-no member of that genus had as yet been met with 
Mr. Charles D. B. Larbalestier intends publishing fasciculi of Channel 
Islands lichens. 
From a letter addressed to Mr. Daniel Hanbury, we learn that Mr. Milne, 
whose departure for the West Coast of Africa we announced some months ago 
(p. 31), had safely reached his destination on the 12th of April, and was staying 
at Ikoneto, fifty miles up the Old Calabar river, busily engaged in collecting. 
tanie Gardens on Sundays was negatived, on a division, by 123 to 107, the 
religious feeling in Scotland being opposed to the principle involved in the 
motion. : 
By the last mail from the Mauritius we received news of the sudden death 
of Ph. B. Ayres, Esq., M.D., of the Civil Hospital Port Louis. Dr. Ayres 
was a pupil of Dr. Lindley, at the London University, and before leaving this 
country, about six years ago, paid a good deal of attention to our indigenous 
fangi, of which he published some fasciculi of. dried specimens. He also com- 
menced a detailed examination of the seeds of a large number of plants, for the 
urpose of ascertaining the relative abundance of starch in the seeds of dif- 
ferent Natural Orders. Tn the Mauritius, he employed all his leisure time m 
investigating the flora of the island, and had formed an herbarium of native 
plants, as well as made drawings of a large number, for a ‘Flora Mauritiana. 
He likewise contributed papers to the Royal Society of Mauritius. 
Died on the 8th of February, at Louvain, Belgium, Dr. Martin Martins, Pro- 
fessor of Botany there, and, in conjunction with Galeotti, author of a paper on. 
Mexican ferns. He was born at Maestricht, in 1797. 
Dr. Schleiden has resigned his chair in the University of Jena, and taken up - 
his residence at Dresden. 
Dr. Ascherson, of Berlin, one of the most painstaking of German local 
botanists, has gone to the island of Sardinia, to investigate its vegetation, and 
devote his special attention to the study of the Isoétes species, a subject which, 
since so ably handled by Messrs. Gay, Braun, and Babington, is engaging more 
than ordinary attention. ; 
A scientific association, to consist of 50 members, has been organized eee 
the United States, under the title of « The National Academy of Sciences; — — 
Among the 50 we notice Professor Asa Gray and Dr. Engelmann. 
From Perth, Swan River, we learn that Mr. James Drummond, one of the 
“most zealous explorers of Western Australia, died at that place on the 27th of 
March, at an advanced 
