BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 165 
names, when adjectives, whether derived from names of persons, 
places, or things, should be written with small letters, and that 
when they are substantives they should have initial capitals, as Di- 
cranum Schradert. This would promote uniformity of nomen- 
clature, an object of some importance. 
BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 
Botanical Society of Edinburgh.—At a recent meeting of this Society 
a paper was read on the Flora in the neighbourhood of Castle Taylor, in 
the county of Galway, by A. G. More, Esq., Trin. Col., Dublin. From this 
paper, as reported in the ‘Annals and Magazine of Naturai History,’ we 
notice that several subalpine species of British plants grow in the west of 
Treland, at or near the coast-line; for example, Dryas octopetala, Sazifraga 
hypnoides, Hieracium cerinthoides, Arbutus Uva-ursi, and Juniperus nana. 
The writer points out the following species seen by him, but not marked 
as Irish in Babington’s Manual, viz. Cardamine sylvatica, Viola stagnina, © 
Spirea Filipendula, Geum interinedium, Myriophyllum alterniflorum, Hie- 
racium cerinthoides, Epipactis media; Potamogeton lanceolatus, Alopecurus 
agrestis, Lolium italicum. We opine that this list might be extended, but 
to little purpose. At a subsequent meeting of the same Society, Dr. 
Balfour made some very interesting remarks on Megacarpea polyandra, 
Benth., an abnormal genus of the Crucifere, but probably more interesting 
from its economical uses and its distribution. It is found on the northern 
side of the Himalayas in British India, and from thence through Thibet, 
Turkestan, and Siberia, to the regions of the Caspian Lake. Its range of 
temperature is considerable, for in all these vast regions the summer heat is 
very great, and the winter’s cold is very severe. We beg leave to ask our 
readers if it has been cultivated or is cultivable in Europe? If so, it might 
be used either as an esculent or a condiment, or as both. The root is 
eaten by the Indian mountaineers; its green shoots are said to be ex- 
cellent fodder, and they are the chief support of the camel in his weari- 
some passage through the sandy deserts and dreary steppes of these tracts. 
In the August number of the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ 
there is a report on the organization of the pedicellate glands of the leaf 
of Drosera rotundifolia, to which paper we beg to refer such of our readers 
as are desirous of information on this curious subject. In the same num- 
ber there is an account of a new organ observed in Callitriche (C. platy- 
carpa, etc.). 
Notes on Irish Plants by H. Lhwyd ; from the Philosophical Transactions, 
1713.—(Liwyd to Dr. T. Robinson.) ‘In the same neighbourhood (Sligo 
and Bali Shany) on the mountains of Ben Bulben and Ben Buishgen, we 
met with a number of the rare mountain plants of England and Wales, 
and three or four not yet discovered in Britain. Mr. Heaton’s Chamedrys 
alpina is a common plant on these hills, and is also on divers other moun- 
tains and heathy grounds in Connacht and Munster. In the Isle of Aran, 
near Galloway, we found great plenty of the Adiantum verum, and a sort 
