Bibliographical Notice. 81 



Fries), first with stipitate and next with sessile cups ; then come 

 those species which arise from a suhiculum or mycelioid stratum, 

 divided into those with smooth cups and a flat disk (many of the 

 Helotia of Fries), first, with distinctly stipitate, and, secondly, with 

 shortly stalked cups ; those with convex apothecia follow {Helotia, 

 Persoon and Fries), then those with sessile, flat, or concave cups 

 (Mollisia, Fries), and either seated on a subiculum or free, sub- 

 divided into those with furfuraceous (Lachnea, Fries) and those with 

 smooth apothecia ; they are either brightly coloured or hyaline 

 (Orbilia and Calloria, Fries) and have paraphyses with claviform 

 tips, or pallid and blackish, with simple fruit {Mollisia, Fries), or, 

 again, have firm lichenoid cups and, frequently, septate fruit 

 (Patellea and Patellaria, Fries). 



Such is, in a few words, the nature of the sections and subsections 

 which the learned author adopts. Experience alone, perhaps, will 

 show whether his system will prove easier to the student than that 

 of Fries : at first sight it certainly appears so ; at all events there 

 can be no doubt of the value of his concise and lucid descriptions of 

 species and accurate measurements of the fruit. His aim has been 

 to give, in as few words as possible, such characters as will enable 

 the student to determine the specimen before him, avoiding, on the 

 one hand, the vagueness of the older writers, and, on the other, the 

 diffuseness and prolixity of later authors. It is to be regretted that 

 there is no scale of measurements common to the scientific world ; 

 for the trouble of rendering in every instance fractions of French 

 into those of English measures is so great as to render the work 

 under discussion far less useful to an English botanist than it might 

 otherwise have been. The dimensions of the fruit given by Dr. 

 Nylander accord generally with those given by Messrs. Berkeley and 

 Broome in the ' Annals of Natural History.' In a few cases, how- 

 ever, he appears to have different things in view : for instance, 

 Peziza brunnea, A. & S., is described with spherical fruit; Corda, 

 quoted by Dr. Nylander, in Sturm's ' Deutschland's Flora,' iii. ii. 

 p. 68, t. 28, figures it as elliptic, and says " die Sporen sind eyfor- 

 rnig," &c. ; so that the plant of Nylander must be different both from 

 Corda's and also from that of Desmaziere (Cr. Fr. ed. 1. 1312). The 

 figure of Albertini and Schweinitz is also very unlike that of Corda. 



Peziza asperior, Nyl., comes near to Peziza trechispora, B. & Br. ; 

 but the sporidia are " globose or subglobose ;" in fig. 2 they are 

 globose. 



Peziza polytrichi, Schum. Dr. Nylander has evidently a different 

 thing in view from the plant of the ' Annals of Natural History ' for 

 May and June 1854, No. 768, which is referred to P. humosa, Fr., 

 in the ' Annals ' for August 1866. 



P. leucoloma, Hedw., is also said to have globose sporidia : in the 

 plant of ' Engl. Flo.' they are bluntly elliptic. Nylander's plant 

 would seem therefore to be distinct. 



P. alboviolascens, A. & G. — The Professor remarks, in a note, 

 p. 28, " Thecas sporas continentes ei nondum in speciminibus An- 

 giitis, Gallicis, et Germanicis quae examinare licuit inveni." It has 

 Ann. &, Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. iii. 6 



