817 





BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, do. 



Dr. Trimen, who is now in England, has received the sanction 

 of the Government of Ceylon to proceed with the publication of the 

 Flora of that island, upon which he has been for some time 

 engaged, The work will be published in parts by Messrs, Dulau 

 & Co,, and will form 2 vols. 8vo, and be illustrated by a 4to atlas 

 of 100 coloured plates from drawings by the native Singhalese 

 artists attached to the Peradeniya Gardens. The first part, con- 

 taining the whole of the Thalamifloral Polypetalae, is now in the 

 press. The book is more especially designed for use in the Colony, 

 and enters into more local detail than has been the practice in the 

 Colonial Floras hitherto published by Government. These have 

 been, unavoidably, for the most part written rather from the 

 standpoint of the herbarium-botanist than for use in the field, and 

 the local information they afford has been quite insufficient for the 

 wants of residents, however useful the diagnoses may be to botanists 

 generally. The price of the first part, with 25 coloured Plates, 

 will be £1 Is. Od. ; that of the whole book (in one payment) 

 £3 13s. 6d. Subscribers' names will be received by Messrs. 

 Dulau & Co., 27, Soho Square, London, W. 



We are glad to see that a movement for the earlier opening of 

 Kew Gardens has been set on foot, and trust that it will now be 

 carried to a successful issue. As was pointed out by the Editor of 

 this Journal in 1878 (p. 128), the official objections to the opening 

 are extremely feeble. The scientific and experimental work of Kew 

 is carried on in the Herbarium, the Jodrell Laboratory, and the 

 parts of the Gardens to which the general public are under no 

 circumstances admitted ; and there is no more reason for closing 

 the Gardens during the morning than for shutting up the public 

 parks during a similar period. The matter is dealt with at length 

 in Nature Notes for October. We are sorry to learn that, in spite 

 of Mr. Plunket's assurance (see p. 191), the summer has been 

 allowed to pass without the appearance of the long-delayed and 

 much-needed Guide to the Gardens. 



The Guide to the Metropolitan Railway Extension to Chesham, &c. 



(2d.), has a novel feature in a "list of wild flowers and indigenous 

 plants found within a radius of six miles of Pinner," which "has 

 been prepared with great care by a botanist of note, Mr. John W. 

 Odell, of Barrow Point Hill." Mr. Odell should revise the proofs 

 of the next issue, in order that he may not be credited with the 

 invention of such names as as Bidens cerauna, Daphn, Buttomas, 

 Blecknum, Lysimachia vemorum, Bryonia diocia, Epipactis lali- 

 folia, Witlow grass, Orphine, and the like. We would also suggest 

 some kind of arrangement in the list. Only one grass is men- 

 tioned, and there are no Cyperacese. There are occasional notes, 

 some of which are of an admonitory kind, as when we are told 

 that Agrimonia Eupatoria " is a small yellow-flowered plant, used 

 medicinally, and must not be confounded with the next mentioned" 

 — Eapatorium cannabinum. Did any one ever confound them ? Still 



it is gratifying to find a list of plants in a railway guide, and if, 



