318 botanical gazette. [December, 



Shortia has long been regarded as one of the rarest plants in the 

 North American flora. Now, however, it is known to be so common, in 

 at least one region, that a long established vernacular name for it is in 

 common use among the few families of mountaineers who inhabit 

 the valleys at the headwaters of the Savannah river, where Shortia is 

 found. Galax, the near relative of Shortia, is known almost universally 

 to the people of the southern Alleghany Mountains as Coltsfoot, from a 

 fancied resemblance of the leaf to that of a colt's foot The smaller leaf of 

 Shortia, which resembles somewhat the leaf of Galax, is called " Little 

 Coltsfoot." — Garden and Forest 



North American roses furnish a subject for Dr. G. N. Best in the 

 Journal of the Trenton (N. J.) Natural Hist. Soc. (Jan., 1889). He con- 

 siders their classification, and well expresses its difficulty by his opening 

 sentence : " To the botanist who yearns to enrich synonymy, the roses 

 offer at once an inviting and productive field." He recounts the sending 

 to Sir Joseph Smith by Amos Eaton of three specimens from the same 

 bush, two of which were referred by that distinguished botanist to two 

 described species, and the third described as a new species. With such 

 facts can it be wondered at that "the study of roses is in its infancy"? 

 It may be a serious question whether there are species among roses. Dr. 

 Best appends a classiti cation, which is a modification of M. Crepin's. 



Bokorny finds (Prings. Jahrbiicher, xx. 427) that the phenomenon of 

 " aggregation," first described by Darwin as taking place in the cells of 

 the tentacles of Drosera when treated with a very weak solution of am- 

 monium carbonate, is quite widespread, occurring in phanerogams and 

 algae of the most diverse families. It can be produced by almost any sub- 



stance of a basic nature. He distinguishes four modes of aggregation 

 (a) contraction of the entire plasma, (6) contraction and division of the 

 vacuole wall or tonoplast, (c) the extrusion of minute droplets of proteids 

 from the cell-sap and their fusion into larger masses, and (d) similar sep- 

 aration of the proteids of the plasma. These forms of aggregation do not 

 usually occur singly in any cell, and probably depend on the transition of 

 the proteids from a swollen condition to a denser, on account of a loss of 

 water induced by the basic substance. As to the biological significance 

 of the phenomenon, he ventures no opinion. 



The death is announced of Mr. John Ball, the distinguished English 

 botanist. His studies were devoted largely to botanical geography and to 

 philosophical questions relating to the origin and descent of existing 

 floras. Mr. Ball's best known works are "The origin of the Flora of the 

 European Vlps," published in 1878, and his " Contributions to the Flora 

 of the Peruvian Andes, with remarks on the history and origin of the 

 Andean Flora," published in 1885, in the journal of the Linnsean Society. 

 He accompanied Sir Joseph Hooker, in 1871, in his scientific mission to 

 Morocco, publishing on his return a catalogue of the plants discovered, 

 with critical introductory observations (his first attempt to explore the 

 chain of the Greater Atlas was made as early as 1851). Mr. Ball traveled 

 extensively and was a practiced and accurate observer, and one of the 

 very best books of recent travels is the one in which he described his 

 South American journey, which carried him around that continent. Mr- 

 Ball was in North America in 1884 at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Montreal, and of the American Association at Philadelphia, later, 

 accompanying his old friend and correspondent, Dr. Asa Gray, on the ast 

 journey the Cambridge professor made to Roan Mountain and other 

 points of botanical interest in North Carolina. Mr. Ball belonged to a 

 school of botanists of which only a few members remain ; and he was al- 

 most the last of his associates and contemporaries.— Garden and Forest. 



