BOTANICAL NEWS. 59 
The list of flowering plants and ferns for the Andover district of a 
hundred square miles runs up to 667. But this list is unduly aug- 
mented by including Aconitam Napellus, Silene Armeria, Papaver som- 
niferum, (Enothera biennis, and other casual escapes, numbered among 
the more truly wild plants in regular series. Two other species, inter- 
rogatively named in the list, we may confidently discard, namely, Gna- 
phalium luteo-album and Carex aqnatilis, while two others, similarly 
obtmifolius 
caprea 
We regret that Mr. Clarke did not print the name of a London pub- 
lisher on his title-page and send some copies for disposal by him. VV e 
are indebted to the Rev. W. W. Newbould for the sight of the work, 
and for the knowledge that it exists at all. Our notice of a local book 
has run to some length, but the subjects selected for comment are not 
unimportant in a general view. 
H. C. W. 
BOTANICAL NEWS. 
Our readers will be glad to learn that Dr. Ilooker is publishing in tlw cur- 
rent numbers of the 'Gardener's Chronicle,' his important lecture on "In- 
sular Floras," delivered in August last, before the members of the British 
Association, at Nottingham, and of which we gave a lengthened summary in 
our last number. t . 
Botanical Society of Edinburgh.— IZth December.— Wm. Gorrie, Esq., 
Vice-President, in the chair. The following communications were read:— 
1 . Notes of an Excursion with Pupils to Braemar in August, 1866. By Pro- 
fessor Balfour. 2. On the Reproductive Organs of Mosses. By Mr. Wm. 
Bell, Saharunpore. 3. On Taxus baccata rariegata seedlings. By Alex. J. 
Adie, Esq. 4. On Abnormal Flowers in Tropaolum majus. By Dr. Alex- 
ander Dickson. Dr. Dickson exhibited four abnormal flowers of the common 
Indian Cress (Tropceolum majus), each presenting a supernumerary spur. On 
these he remarked that, in Tropceolum, the posterior part of the receptacle 
between the insertion of the petals and that of the stamens is dilated so as to 
form the spur which is so characteristic in the genus. The position of the spur 
in a line with the posterior sepal has led many botanists to consider it as a 
process of that sepal, but the fact of its being situated within the insertion of 
the petals is conclusive as to its receptacular origin. In the flowers exhibited 
the supernumerary spur (as if to show its want of connection with any sepal) 
is placed exactly between a lateral sepal and one of the anterior sepals, some- 
times on the one side of the flower and sometimes on the other. These addi- 
tional spurs are precisely similar to the normal ones, except that they are 
