382 BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. [December, 



heartily wish it. Our only fear is that eightpence a month will 

 prove a hindrance to its wide circulation amongst the reading 

 poor and a large portion of the less wealthy middle class. If re- 

 duced to half the price we think it likely that it would reach a 

 circulation at least eight or ten times that which it is likely to 

 secure at its present cost, and become a more remunerating spe- 

 culation to its publishers. 



BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 



Botany fob, Schools. 

 {From a Correspondent.) 



The Tmstees of the Madras College, St. Andrew's, Fife, have resolved 

 to establish a botanical lectureship in addition to the other educational 

 means for which this training Institution is celebrated. The scheme em- 

 braces the formation of a botanic garden, in which the British and other 

 hardy herbaceous plants will be cultivated, and in a natui-al systematic ar- 

 rangement. An herbarium is to be collected by the pupils and placed under 

 the custody of a curator, who is to have charge of the garden. 



This is a step in the right direction, and the only feasible, practical way 

 of introducing botciny into schools. The teachers must be taught ; and 

 such of them as happily imbibe a taste for this recreative science, wiU in- 

 spire their pupils with somewhat of their own enthusiasm for the study. It is 

 very much to be desired that the directors of the scholastic training establish- 

 ments in the southern part of our kingdom would imitate the example of 

 their Scottish brethren. To initiate the future teachers in the art of com- 

 municating knowledge is the primary object of all normal schools, and 

 natural science is as well adai)ted to draw out and discipline the intellectual 

 and perceptive faculties as the sciences of grammar, number, and quantity. 



GrLADIOLUS OF THE NeW EoREST. 

 (See ' Pbytologist ' for 1857, p. 193.) 



It is hereby requested that some Hants reader or correspondent of the 

 ' Phytologist ' would be so obliging as to send to 45, Erith Street, a bulb 

 of the above-named plant for comparison. The characters of the two 

 allied species, G. commimis and G. imhricaUis, as given below, are drawn 

 up from Eeichenbach's figures of the two presumed distinct plants. 



Gladiolus communis, Ech. Ic. 349, has the flowers fewer, larger, and 

 paler than imbricatus, the roots are also larger. 



G. communis. Root reticulated with fibres above the middle; divisions 

 of the perianth rhomboid ; filaments exceeding the anthers ; stigma spa- 

 thulate. 



G. imbricatus. Tunic covered with dense, parallel, not netted, fibres ; 

 divisions of the perianth rhomboid-ovate ; anthers shorter than the fila- 

 ments ; stigmas ciUated from the base. They also differ in their seeds. 



