BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 247 
(Proceedings, 1888-90, pp. 24-25). The question was raised, could 
this small picture have been also in the possession of Robert Brown? 
In the discussion which followed, Mr. Carruthers stated that Robert 
Brown left all his property to his successor, J. ennett, his own 
Vain at the British Museum, and he was certain that if the 
portrait now shown had belonged to Brown, Bennett would have 
carefully kept it, and ensured its conservation. The Rev. Canon 
Smith pointed out that = a still —e label the frame must have 
been made not later than 1837. The first paper was by Mr. H. H. 
Haines, ‘‘ On two new Species of Populus from Darjeeling,’ ’ which 
which may or may not be the species described by Dode from im- 
perfect material, and P. glauca. Dr. Maxwell T. ‘Mains paper 
‘On the Conifers of China,” was read in sitet : it described the 
whole SS est now known, including the discoveries of Mr. 
K. H. Wilson and B. — se new species are fully set out, 
five of these elon of the genus Picea. 
Tue first Bulletin Z the ies erial Central Agricultural Experi- 
ment Station in Japan has just sath ssued ; it is written partly in 
English and partly in Ger cin n. There are forty-seven somewhat 
similar establishments in the country, but they deal mostly with local 
questions and local needs. The newly formed central station aims at 
taking up research of more general pater interest. The Bulletin 
contains a long and interesting accoun experiments, carefully 
tabulated and illustrated, which treat of the properties of various 
salts in the soil, and of their influence on different sorts of vegeta- 
tion. There are other papers dealing with plant pathology. A 
disease of rue was found to be due to bacteria which lived in 
the plants 3 by siciiiis the vessels of stem an es. As of 
bamboo, which causes considerable loss to Fos sce growers, has 
been mig ts and its life-history worked o A disease of rice, 
caused by s de 
rien followed i in 
crane-fly, i scribed, and on ‘develo peniath of the 
detail. 
To Fascicle IX. of his Index Filicum (Copenhagen : Hagerup) 
Herr Christensen adds a slip, begging that his attention may be 
to 
work, in order that they may be made good in the appendix and 
errata, which will close the present section of the Index—the alpha- 
betical enumeration of the species and synonyms. The isendine 
oe of the work will be a systematic oo of the genera 
how terribly fern-students were handicapped before the author 
a his publication, and how potent a factor the Index will prove 
ving time, and in tracking out the mazes of pteridological 
cisanalataie —A.G, 
