48 THE JOURNAL OF BUTANY 
spent three months in 1899 on Rarotonga, the chief member of the 
Tongan i 
ace 
orders have less than 10 representatives each. Highteen species 
are regarded as endemic, and are described as new, amongst them 
being the striking Hitchia speciosa Cheesm. 
At the meeting of the same Society on Dee. 5th, Dr. J. H. Salter 
read a paper on “ Protoplasmic Connections in the Lichens.” The 
investigations detailed were undertaken at the suggestion of Prof. 
Arthur Meyer, of Marburg, the Lichens chosen for special study 
being Peltigera canina, Evernia Prunastri, Usnea barbata, Cladonia 
fureata, C. rangiferina, and C. sqguamosa. One per cent. of osmic 
acid was used for fixing, dilute sulphuric acid for causing swelling, 
staining. Observations were made by a Zeiss 4, homogeneous oil- 
immersion objective, giving a magnification of 1600 diameters, and 
the drawings were made by the aid of the camera lucida. Sections 
are simplified, and a new conception is obtained, by our ability to 
recognize the essential unity of the living matter throughout the 
organism, 
Tue index to Dr. A. Braun’s monograph of the Symplocacee— 
the latest instalment of Das Pflanzenreich—is noteworthy on account 
of its completeness and of the facility it affords to herbarium workers. 
The “ register” includes not only the page-reference for each name 
entered in the monograph, but also the number of the species, 
whether retained or'reduced; the former are indicated by a prefixed 
asterisk—a method of distinction which has something to recommend 
it, seeing that italics, which we are accustomed to employ for syn- 
Tae latest issue (issued in December) of the Annuario del R. 
Istituto Botanico di Roma contains the « Bibliografia e Storia” of 
the Flora Romana. 
