I860.] BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 189 



Gardener^ Chronicle. 



There are in the series of this weekly periodical several papers 

 oil Mr. Darwin's ' Origin of Species / and on Mycology, by the 

 most eminent mycologist of the day. There is only room at 

 this time for the following notice of Quercus sessiliflora, by Mr. 

 Rivers : — 



" I was not aware, till recently, of the vast numbers of this variety of 

 Oak gi'owing in the Torest of Dean. I happened to be visiting a fiiend 

 living in Monmouth, last October, and in taking a drive to view the sceneiy 

 of the Forest, we went through a considerable portion of it, where the Oaks 

 grow, in our way to Coleford. I was at once struck with the hills and 

 valleys, as far as the eye could reach, being covered with round-headed 

 Oak-trees, none of them very large, but all standing at regidar distances, 

 as if they had been thinned out to grow into timber, which has been the 

 case. Their compact round heads and dark foliage at once reminded me 

 of the sessde stalked Oaks in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and I imme- 

 diately commenced a search for acorns. I found most of the trees had 

 some few left on them, and all that I examined were the short-stalked 

 variety, or Q. sessiliflora. My friend, an inhabitant of Monmouth, said 

 that the portion of the forest devoted to oak-culture for the Navy, and 

 *v\'hich looked rather like a plantation of Oaks than a forest, extended over 

 11,000 acres." 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUEKIES. 

 Eantjnculi {Batrachian). (See ' Phytologist ' for May, 1860, p. 138.) 



The author of the above-mentioned paper remarks : — " Nor is it believed 

 that botanists have altogether acquiesced even in the estimate of 128 as the 

 number of British species." 



Does the learned author mean that botanists do not admit that there 

 are 128 British Batrachian Ranunculi? The word 'even,' Avhich 1 have 

 italicized, intimates that there may be more than 128 species into which 

 the two ancient species of R. aquatilis and R. hederaceus have been spbt 

 by the keen investigations of modern scientiiic observers. 



The writer of the article in question, and the readers also, are infoiTued 

 that no botanists, neither British nor Continental, acquiesce in any such 

 extravagant estimate. 



It was once asked in the ' Phjiologist ' — "VYho knows Viola canina ? 

 and the question startled some rather nervous folks. If the question were 

 asked, — Who knows Ranunculus aquatilis ? could a tithe of even British 

 botanists reply in the affirmative. Who knows the 10, 20, 30, or perhaps 

 100 species, into which this humble aquatic has been divided. It has be- 



