64 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 



now called P. transversum, the former name having been pre- 

 occupied. There are also new species of Diuris, and other interesting 

 plants. Mr. Fitzgerald is responsible for the plates as well as the 

 descriptions of this important work. 



We learn that Dr. Dyer is engaged in the preparation of the 

 new Guide to Kew Gardens* which it was hoped would have been 

 ready in time for summer visitors last year. We understand that 

 the Guide has been out of print for five years, — it was last issued in 

 1885, — and that some of the Museum Guides and the Handbook to 

 the North Gallery have been similarly inaccessible for a considerable 

 period. The irregular issue of the Kew Bulletin (of which the October 

 and November numbers have only just been issued), and the cessation 

 some years back of the Keports of the Gardens and Herbarium, 

 which contained much valuable information, suggest that Kew is 

 not as much to the front with its publications as with its other 

 undertakings. When the Bulletin first appeared, it was intended 

 to be supplementary to the Annual Reports (see Journ. Bot. 1887, 

 p. 123), and we regret that it has been allowed to replace them, 

 which it does very inadequately. There seems a growing laxity in 

 the dating of publications : the Annals of Botany, for example, 

 seldom if ever appears in the month indicated on its cover. 



The Smithsonian Institution has just issued (Bulletin 39, U. S. 

 National Museum) a useful pamphlet by Mr. F. H. Knowlton, 



entitled Directions for Collecting Recent and Fossil Plants. 



Dr. A. Zahlbruckner publishes in the Annalen der K. K. Natur- 

 historischen Ho/museums some notes on the Lobeliacece of the Vienna 

 Herbarium. He establishes a new genus, Trematocarpus, the type 

 of which is Lobelia viacrostachijs Hook. & Arn. 



We have received from Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 

 a handsome volume by the late J. D. Sedcling, entitled Garden-craft, 

 Old and New (8vo, pp. xxviii. 215). Mr. Sedcling, who is best 

 known as an architect, was, as the Rev. E. F. Russell says in the 

 memoir prefixed to the book, "master of many crafts," and garden- 

 craft among them. A man of taste and cultivation, and one who 

 exemplified in his work his knowledge of "the eternal fitness of 

 things," he regards gardening and its associations from the aesthetic 

 as well as the practical standpoint, and his essays are delightful 

 reading. There is nothing in the way of technical botany in this 

 pleasant volume; but the many botanists who are also flower- 

 lovers, and have gardens of their own, will find it a desirable 

 addition to their libraries. 



We regret to announce the death of Miss Isabella Gifford, the 

 well-known algologist, which took place at Minehead on Dec. 26th. 

 We hope to publish some account of the deceased lady in an early 

 issue, as well as of Mr. W. H. Fitch, who died at Kew on Jan. 14th. 



Mr. T. H. Buffham is anxious that we should correct the very 

 obvious misprint of "Jiliformis " for " clavqformis " which occurs in 



the explanation of the plate accompany ing his paper in this Journal 



for November. 



