154 



NOTICES OF BOOKS, dc. 

 Sets of British Plants. 

 yf British Rubi. 1892-1895. Issued by the Eevs. E. F. 



W 



Fascicle I. 



Our four clerical Zfofais-students are to be congratulated on the 

 satisfactory character of their first fasciculus. If this work is 

 carried out as it has been begun, it will mark a new era in our 

 knowledge of British Bubi, in which our indigenous plants are 

 carefully compared and identified with those of Continental Europe. 

 The present fascicle of twenty-five numbers is entirely made up of 

 rare critical forms, nearly all of them from the South of England. 

 First comes Hubus Leesii, gathered in Derbyshire. The Suberectus 

 group is represented by sulcattts, nitidus, integribasis, and ajftnis ; the 

 group with equal prickles by erythrinus, incurvatus, imbricatw, rhom- 

 boideus, gratus, and leucandrus ; the liaduli by Colemanni, adscitus, 

 gymnostachys, praruptorum, rudis, melanodermis 9 fuscus, anglosaxonicus , 

 and Bloocamii ; and the Glandulosi by rosaceus, obscurus, viridis, 

 Durotrigum, and longithyrsiger. Six of these, Leesii and incurvatus 

 of Babington, longithyrsiger and Bloxamii of Lees, imbricatus of Hort, 

 and Durotrigum of B. P. Murray, are types originally described by 

 British authors ; and four of them, nitidus, affinis, fuse us 9 and rudis, 

 are forms figured and described by Weihe and Nees, the names of 

 which, until very recently, have been wrongly applied in this 

 country. The specimens, without exception, show clearly the 

 differential characters by which the form is marked, and the 

 undertaking will be a great help to botanists who want to understand 

 this intricate genus. The synopsis which is promised with the 

 second fasciculus is that now publishing in these pages by the 



Bev. W. Moyle Bogers. 



J. G. B. 



The first Fasciculus of the Characea Britannica Exsiccata, by 

 Messrs. H. & J. Groves, is now ready for issue. It consists of thirty 

 numbers, and illustrates species of Char a , Lychnothamnus, Lampro- 

 thamnus, Tolypella, and Nitella. Messrs. Groves hope to illustrate, 

 in this most effective manner, all the British species in about three 

 Fasciculi. It is not easy to give an idea of the difficulties overcome 

 by Messrs. Groves in the preparation of these specimens. There were 

 not only their acquisition and determination, but the mechanical 

 difficulties of mounting are in no group of plants so formidable as 

 in the Characea. The specimens are so well selected and mounted 

 that it may be doubted if even Cfiaracea have ever received such 

 attentions before. There are so many bogus published sets of 

 Cryptogams (especially Algae and Fungi) now being issued on the 

 Continent (e.g., a well-known set of Algae contained in its last 

 fascicle a quantity of crustaceous eggs named Valonia !) that this 

 issue deserves a special welcome. Copies of the fascicle are to be 

 obtained from the Messrs. Groves, 58, Jeffreys Road, Clapham, S. W. f 



guinea 



G. M. 



