911 



long to the same species. In the absence of precise information on 

 the subject, Dr. Boott is incHned to refer to Presl's C. physocarpa (a 

 native of Nootka Sound), both the larger Greenland specimens, and 

 others from the Rocky Mountains described by him as C. saxatilis in 

 Hooker's ' Flora Boreali-Americana.' The author, while he repeats 

 that both himself and Mr. Wilson consider C. Grahami entitled to 

 rank as a species, yet leaves it to future observers to determine the va- 

 lue of the character given for it, and whether it is to be retained as 

 distinct, referred back to C. saxatilis (i.), or transferred to C. physo- 

 carpa (Presl.) 



Read also, ' An account of the Trees producing Myrrh and Frankin- 

 cense, as found in those parts of the coast of the Red Sea and Indian 

 Ocean whence those Gums were obtained in the first dawn of Com- 

 merce ;' by Ma,ior W. C. Harris, late on an Embassy to the Court of 

 Shoa, in southern Abyssinia. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



February 2, 1844. — A. Gerard, Esq., in the chair. 



Various donations to the library and herbarium were announced, 

 including 44 new species of mosses, collected at Swan River by Mr. 

 James Drummond. 



Read the commencement of a paper by Edwin Lees, Esq., F.L.S., 

 being * A Synoptical View of the British Fruticose Rubi, an-anged in 

 Groups, with explanatory remarks.' The groups into which Mr. Lees 

 unites the species have been already reported (Phytol. 655). The 

 list of species will shortly be published in a new Catalogue of British 

 Plants, now in the press for the Botanical Society of London. 



The following explanations, in the words of the author, will suffi- 

 ciently show that this arrangement has not been founded upon any 

 brief or superficial study of his subject. 



*' Having previously designated the general groups into which the 

 British Fruticose Rubi are divisible, I now proceed to attempt the 

 more difficult task of describing the species in each group, and tra- 

 cing them in succession in a synoptical form. In doing this, as I 

 must necessarily propose some alterations, it is advisable that the 

 candid and enquiring botanist should be informed as to the principles 

 I have kept in view. 



" In the first place, then, I have desired to make no innovation but 

 what seemed imperatively required for correct elucidation, and have 

 therefore made every effort to profit by the labours of preceding emi- 



