;48 



NA TURE 



{Feb. lo, i! 



exist, and the records are full of remarks as to their non- 

 existence, especially with regard to the Diane, which lay- 

 near the main track to Torres Strait from Sydney. They 

 were, however, retained on the charts, with notations as 

 to the doubt in their positions. 



.\t length, m 1SS4, two reports were made by small 

 trading-vessels from Queensland to New Guinea, one of 

 a small bank in lat. 15° 41', and long. 149° 43', the other 

 of a submerged reef in lat. 15° 28', long. 147^6'. It was 

 at once observed that the latitudes of these, and their 

 tlistance apart, agreed with those of Bougainville's dis- 

 coveries, though they were far to the westward, and it 

 seemed as if the long-lost reefs were at length again 

 found, since it was not at all improbable that the westerly 

 current had caused the reckoning in longitude, uncor- 

 rected by chronometers, to be over-run by La Boudeusc. 

 Capt. Denham's searches, minute and painstaking, and 

 apparently sufficiently extended as they had been, just 

 fell short of the positions of these new reports, the limit 

 of his examinations passing within ten miles of both of 

 them. 



One link, however, was missing to insure certainty in 

 the identification, viz. the second reef of Boug.iinville. 



During the past year H.M.S. Myrmidon has been 

 scouring the Coral Sea, and in the course of her cruise 

 made this one object of search. It was, however, unavail- 

 ing ; clear sea was alone seen in the direction of the second 

 reef But her description both of sand-bank and reef 

 reported in 1S84 tallied precisely with Bougainville's de- 

 tailed accounts. More accurate observations, moreover, 

 showed that the latitudes were in each case almost exactly 

 identical with his, and that the distances apart, as before 

 stated, agreed. 



But what of the reef still missing ? 



A closer examination of Bougainville's journal revealed 

 that the second reef was sighted from aloft .it 5.30 p.m., 

 at an estimated distance of five miles. The sun set at 

 5-35, behind the reef; twilight is short in those latitudes, 

 and it seems improbable that I.a Boudeusc could have been 

 near enough to see the reef clearly before night closed in. 

 It is thereore believed that the delusive appearance of re- 

 flection misled the voyagers, and that Bougainville, so 

 accurate in his other reports, was in this instance 

 mistaken. 



A further difficulty remains. How could La Boudcuse 

 steering the course reported have made the land 100 miles 

 to windward of her direct track .' Here, agam, the explana- 

 tion seems to be that later voyagers re-bestowed the name 

 of Orangerie on that one of the numerous bays on the 

 New Guinea coast which corresponded to Bougainville's 

 longitude. These are assumptions ; but the other evidence 

 s so complete ihat it is believed that the mystery of 120 

 ears is cleared up, and that the dangers which have so 

 .ong been a source of anxiety to the navigator have at 

 length found their true places on the charts. 



The three positions these reefs have occupied are as 

 follows : — 



Boilg.i;nville 

 By c rrected By 



Boiigain\ ille for the position of MyrinUion 



Espiritu Santo 

 S. E. S. E. S. E. 



Diane ... 15^46' I5I°26'... 15° 46' 150° 28'... 15° 43' 149° 37' 

 Bougain- | 

 ville 15° 35' '49° S'... 15' 35' 148° 6'... I5°33' 147° 12' 

 Reefs j 



W. J. L. Wh.\rton 



THE CROCUS^ 



MANY splendidly printed and illustrated monographs 

 of special genera of flowering plants have been 

 published, but few surpass in merit or interest Mr. Maw's 



■ "A Monograph of the Genus Crocus" By George .Maw F.L.S , &c. 

 With an Appendix on the etymology of the words " Crucus " and '' Saffron," 

 by C, C. Lacaita, M.A., M.P , F.L.S. (London : Dulau and Co., 1886.) 



monograph of the species of the genus Crocus. This 

 work, the author tells us, has pleasantly occupied his spare 

 hours for the last eight years. In collecting the material 

 for it, he has travelled far and wide over the crocus 

 region ; he has enlisted the services of a whole host of 

 friends, who, on the borders of the Mediterranean, of the 

 great Basin of the Black Sea, and along the shores of 

 the Caspian, have collected the species peculiar to these 

 localities, and forwarded them for culture and description 

 to Mr. Maw. Perhaps never before has a monograph 

 been written so entirely from the study of living plants. 

 At the same time, no information that was to be gleaned 

 from the dried specimens in herbaria has been neglected. 

 The monograph opens with a chapter on the life-history 

 and physiology of the forms belonging to the genus. As 

 the minute structure of the various parts of the plants 

 has not been made a special study by the author, this 

 portion of the subject leaves a good deal to be done by 

 future workers. The strange phenomenon of dissepi- 

 ments on the pollen-tube is figured as existing, on the 

 authority of Prof Martin Duncan. In the chapter on 

 classification and sequence, we find that the author 

 adopts the division of the species indicated by Dean 

 Herbert, into those with, and those without, a basal 

 spathe. These larger divisions are, again, subdivided 

 into sections, characterised by the form assumed by the 

 bundle tissue or the corm tissues, and these, again, into 

 groups arranged according to the period of flowering. 

 The third chapter is a most interesting one, on the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the species. Confined to the 

 Old World, the species of crocus are therein only to be 

 met with in the northern hemisphere, where they reach a 

 northern limit at about 50^ N. latitude. Westwards, they 

 reach their limit at the coast of Portugal ; southwards, 

 the limit extends to Morocco, though no species appear 

 to be endemic to Africa, and none have been found 

 in the region between Tetuan and the Nile Delta. In 

 Asia, on the borders of Syria, Crocus hyematis has the 

 most southern range of all the species. The eastern limit 

 of the species is at present uncertain, for it seems pretty 

 certain that one or more species have been found in 

 .-Afghan Turkestan. Of the sixty-nine known species, 

 thirty occur in 40° N. latitude, which is far in advance of 

 any other district as a line of growth, but the metropolis 

 of the f;enus is a district including Greece, the Greek 

 Archipelago, and Asia Minor, for in these regions it forms 

 a more important feature in the flora than in the outlying 

 countries to which it extends. The genus is also remark- 

 able for the wide range in altitude of the majority of the 

 species, those that are essentially alpine or lowland being 

 comparatively few in number ; and Mr. Maw does not 

 know of a single species which is not perfectly hardy, 

 that is to say, capable of enduring any of the extremes of 

 cold or heat to be met with in our climate. There do not 

 appear to be distinct areas for the spring and autumn 

 flowering forms, and Mr. Maw has been unable to detect 

 any instances of wild hybrid forms, notwithstanding 

 the close relationship of some of the species, and the 

 fact that their areas of distribution constantly overlap. 



In a fourth chapter the history and literature of the 

 genus are treated of Two centuries before the days of 

 Linnjeus the crocus was known in England as a garden 

 plant, and in Gerarde's " Herball "(1597) eleven forms are 

 figured and described. Most of the famous prc-Linnean 

 writers on plants have added to our knowledge of the 

 species, such as Parkinson in his '' Paradisus" (1629), and 

 Ewart inhis"Florilegium" (1612) ; but Linnaeus contented 

 himself with making but two species, one C. vi'rnus, and the 

 other C. {Bulbocodium) hulbocodiuin. The first important 

 attempt to classify the genus was made by A. H. Haworth 

 in 1809, followed by Goldbach's monograph in 1817, 

 Gay's in 1827, and Sabine's in I S30. Dean Herbert in 1847 

 and Baker in 1873 added much to our scientific know- 

 ledge of the group, and now in this beautiful monograph 



