BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 149 
We have received from Messrs. Griffin the third edition of 
The Flowering Plant, an introduction to Botany by Mr. 
Ainsworth Davis (price 3s. 6d.), the original issue of which ‘was 
noticed at length in this Journal for 1890 (pp.189-91) ; the present 
differs but little, except in the addition of a chapter of ten pages 
entitled ‘‘ Ferns and Mosses,” in which the whole of the Cryptogams 
are disposed of. The index seems as over-compendious as it w 
ten years ago. The book has not an siibasiied: appearance, nal 
there are several elementary text-books on botany published in this 
country, to say nothing of some ety issued in America, which 
e should recommend in preferen 
At a meeting of the Lindos’ Bosiety on Feb. 15th, Mr. R. 
Morton Middleton exhibited a series of specimens of Aspleninon 
Bradleyi Katon, one of the rarer rock ferns from Tennessee, to 
show its extreme variability. The simplest fronds exhibited +e 
found in a damp, cold, perpendicular rift, which no sunshine could 
pinnate structure, with green rachis and rounded — pinne, of 
A, viride Hudson, but were more coriaceous than in that species. 
Dr. mipienn iy author of the Temes Flora, was satisfied that the 
plan s A. viride; and Gen. Kirby Smith, who had had ample 
emer etc of studying A. feeheny on the eastern slopes of the 
Cumberland plateau, remarked that A. viride and A . Bradleyi were 
much alike that they might be varieties. The ‘mye plants 
exhibited, however, showed a gradual tendency to become more and 
more compound, culminating in a luxuriant specimen with pinnatifid 
fronds 10 in. long, the green rachis becoming purple and shining in 
all the plants exposed to the sun’s rays. The affinities of so variable 
a fern are naturally of interest. Eaton remarked: ‘If there could be 
a hybrid between A, ebeneum and A. montanum, it would be much 
like our plant.’’ Asa Gray, following Eaton, said, ‘* Intermediate 
etween A. ebeneum and A. montanum.” Baker says, ‘‘ iaiieis 
montanum and lanceolatum.” Mr. Middleton believed it to be ery 
the species of Europe and Asia, is essentially boreal, and occurs in 
British America from New Brunswick to British Columbia, as well 
as in the State of Vermont. A. Bradleyi then takes its ee 
extending south from New York to Georgia and Alabama, and west 
to Arkansas. A. lanceolatum Huds. is not American at all, but is 
found in Europe, North Africa, and some of the a ee 
(Madeira, Azores, and St. Helena). The exhibitor did n sider 
Flora, state that 4. Bradieyi eataer ot a limestone soil, ut Mr. 
Middleton had found it strictly confined to sandstone, although 
the carboniferous limestone was immediately adjacent. 
Ar the same meeting Mr. J. C. Shenstone crhibited a collection 
of seven hundred photographs of British Flowering Plants, to show 
what could be accomplished by means of the catoath in the direction 
