BOTANICAL GEOGRAPHY. 425 



the influence of climate upon the vegetation of Ukraine, 

 at the same time introducing the description of some new 

 Fungi (Bulletin des Naturalistes de Moscou, torn, xviii, 

 part 2, pp. 132-57). 



Many plants are excluded by the low Isochimena, whilst the high summer 

 temperature appears favorable to the culture of Maize and several Cucurbi- 

 tacese, by which also the author endeavours to explain the remarkable fact, 

 that the berries of Solatium nigrwm in Ukraine lose their narcotic principle, 

 and when ripe become saccharine and eatable. The forests and fields there 

 are protected from the persistent aridity of the summer, which acts to so 

 great a degree upon the adjacent steppes, by the soil of humus, which is 

 from 10 to 15 feet in depth (Tscherno Sem; compare Ann. Rep. for 1843.) 

 Hence the principal forest trees which thrive there are such as send out 

 deep roots, as the oak^the lime, elms, and pear trees ; the red fir (P. Abies), 

 which predominates on the shallow soil of Scandinavia, is unknown in 

 Ukraine, and the ash is frequently killed during the dry season. The deep 

 soil of humus causes several herbaceous plants to grow there to an unusual 

 height ; Cephalaria Tartarica is found 9 feet, Delphinium elatum 5 6 feet 

 in height ; Thistles and Umbelliferse are usually twice the size of those of 

 other regions ; of the Fungi, the pileus of Polyporus and Leuzites is found 

 three feet in breadth ; and the new Morchella alba a foot in height. But 

 the most remarkable object presented by this luxuriant development is the 

 new Bovista, Lycoperdon horrendum, a spherical Fungus, 3 feet in diameter. 

 This Fungus, says the author, might really produce no slight amount of 

 terror ; when in the dark forest it suddenly comes into sight, it makes one 

 imagine a phantom in white or brown garments and in a stooping attitude. 

 This black earth of the south of Russia, which produces this luxuriant 

 growth, must indeed contain a large store of nutritive matter for the vege- 

 table world ; for barley grows there as in the best districts of England or 

 Germany, without ever requiring manure. As regards the Fungi of 

 Ukraine, Czemiaiew attributes the very numerous varieties of their forms 

 to the paucity of the species of Mosses, Lichens, and Ferns. According to 

 his observations, Ukraine alone contains more than 1000 Hymenomycetae, 

 whilst the abundance of Gasteromycetes is still more characteristic. Wein- 

 mann, in his ' Prodromus/ which was published in 1 836, enumerates 300 

 Gasteromycetes as existing in the whole of Russia, whilst Czerniaiew has 

 found almost twice this number of species in Ukraine alone : among them 

 there are several new forms, and a few new genera. 



Weiumann has studied the Mosses of Russia (Bulletin Moscou, torn, xviii, 

 pt. i, pp. 409-89, and pt. ii, pp. 417-503) ; his new species belong to 

 Funaria (1 sp.) and Hypnum (4 sp.) Kaleniczenko describes ten new 

 plants from the south of Russia and the Caucasus (Ibid. pt. i, pp. 229-40) ; 



