80 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



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fasciculi and many of the rarities found by the late Rev. J. M. 

 Crombie. 



The very useful Flore descriptive et illustree de la France, by the 

 Abbe Coste, to which reference has from time to time been made in 

 these pages, has been brought to a conclusion by the issue of part 7 

 of the third volume. This contains additions and corrections and 

 a complete index to the whole work. The number of plants con- 

 sidered as entitled to specific rank is 4354 ; each description is 

 accompanied by a small but excellent figure. 



Vol. xxn. of the Journal of the College of Science of the Uni- 

 versity of Tokyo is devoted to an Enumeratio Phmtarum in Insula 

 Formosa sponte crescentium by J. Matsumura and B. Hayata, of the 

 Botanical Institute of the College- The volume, which is extremely 

 well but somewhat extravagantly printed and extends to over seven 

 hundred pages, gives a very full bibliography for each species with 

 synonymy and distribution, descriptions of new species and vari- 

 eties with seventeen excellent plates by Hayata, and a map of the 

 island showing the routes taken by the various travellers on whose 

 collections the book is based. 



This is how botany is popularized by the Daily Mail : — M Inseci 

 Drunkards. — Insects have their own public-houses, and get intoxi- 

 cated just like human beings, was the charge made yesterday by 

 Professor Bottomley, who lectured on botany at the University of 

 London, South Kensington. The leading public-house in the insect 

 world, according to Professor Bottomley, is the wild arum. It looks 

 like a large lily, and its big, dark shaft extending upwards is the 

 sign that attracts the insects. They climb down into the nectar 

 pit beneath the flower's bags of pollen, and there the orgy 

 commences." 



The Trustees of the British Museum will publish immediately 

 a List of British Seed-Plants and Ferns drawn up by Dr. Bendle ana 

 Mr. Britten. The nomenclature will be in accordance with the 

 Rules adopted at the Vienna Congress, of which a translation was 

 issued as a supplement to last year's Journal. The Rules necessi- 

 tate a few new combinations, on which we hope to publish some 

 notes in our next issue. For the convenience of non-subscribers 

 and others, the Rules have been issued separately as a BhiUiog 

 pamphlet, which may be obtained from Messrs. West, Newman & Co. 



The last part (vol. ix. pt. 1, December) of the Icones Plantation 

 — which is now edited by Lieut. -Col. Prain, as is also the Botanical 

 Magazine — contains much of interest. Mr. Hemsley distinguishes 

 Aleurites Fordii from A. cordata, with which it has hitherto been 

 confounded, and establishes the new genera Indokhvjia and Geopanax 

 (Araliacese) and Neoschhnpera (Rubiaceae, Psychotrieae) on plants 

 from the Seychelles, and Sinowihonia (Hamamelidacese) from China. 

 Mr. Hemsley also revises Corylopsis, with descriptions of two new 

 species. Dr. Stapf revises Vnrandea, under which are twelve 

 species, six of which are new, and establishes a new genus, Eu- 

 phorbia, for Euphorbia drnpifera Thonn. 



