450 



Notice of the l London Journal of Botany? Nos. 83 and 84, for 



December, 1848. 



We had brought up our customary notices of this periodical to No. 

 82, published in October. None was published in the succeeding 

 month, but a double Number, or two in one, came out some time in 

 December ; and with this double issue the work becomes extinct in 

 name, though not in reality. In order to complete our notices of the 

 extinguished periodical, a list of the contents of these two final Nos. 

 is subjoined : 



Nos. 83, 84. Original Papers : Ficuum Species Nigritianae ; by 

 F. A. W. Miquel. Note on Anemia Seemanni ; on Ranunculus Ja- 

 vanicus ; of anew species of Pentagonia; all three by the Editor. 

 Note on the genus Benjaminia ; by G. Bentham. Account of a new 

 British Saxifrage ; by W. H. Harvey. Decades of Fungi ; by M. J. 

 Berkeley. Enumeration of Leguminosse ; by G. Bentham. Descrip- 

 tion of a new Sonerilla ; by the Editor. Botanical Information : Dr. 

 Thomson's Botanical Mission to Thibet. 



In this list of ' Contents ' the title most likely to attract the atten- 

 tion of British phytologicals, is the account of a new British Saxifrage. 

 In conformity with a custom so inconvenient for readers of a periodi- 

 cal, the plate which represented the new Saxifrage was given in the 

 Number of the Journal for October, while the descriptive letterpress 

 was reserved for December. The new species belongs to the group 

 of S. umbrosa and Geum by general habit, but differs remarkably 

 enough in the character of its flowers ; so much so, indeed, that by 

 botanists fond of minute generic distinctions it might be referred to a 

 different genus from S. umbrosa, although it may eventually prove to 

 be only a monstrous or abnormal form of that same polymorphous 

 species. " In the umbrosa group," observes Dr. Harvey, " the calyx 

 is parted to the base, the sepals are perfectly free from the ovary, and 

 are strongly reflexed soon after the expansion of the flower. In our 

 new species the calyx is gamosepalous, cleft two-thirds of its length, 

 the tubercular [tubular ?] portion adheres to the base of the ovary, 

 and the limb, instead of being reflexed, is simply spreading. Add to 

 this, that the petals are much broader and more elliptical than in any 

 of the group, and are elegantly dotted over the whole surface, and we 

 have characters sufficient, I should hope, to mark a species even 

 among a set so proverbially undefinable." 



Unfortunately, this new species of Saxifrage has been seen in 



