﻿ciples" will not be as devious as those which have hitherto charac- 

 terised the work of our transatlantic friends, but that the writers 

 ■will at least agree among themselves as to the lines to be adopted. 

 The specimen pages received form a monograph of the genus 

 / / •/ /. prepared by Mr. L. M. Underwood, the well-known hepati- 

 cologist. After giving preliminary definitions of the natural order 

 Hepaticce and its five suborders, the author proceeds to deal with 

 Riccia in particular, draws up a synopsis of the species (which are 

 19 in number, exclusive of those separated off under RiccieUa and 

 Ricciocarpm)y and then briefly and clearly describes each species, 

 appending the habitat and distribution, and referring to the original 

 description (curiously enough under the head of synonymy!), to 

 illustrations and published sets, and (where possible) to the type 

 plant and its place of origin. Six parts are announced for pub- 

 lication during 1895. We look forward with interest to this 

 important work. 



Prof. F. W. Oliver's translation of Kerner's important work 

 makes steady progress. The first four numbers have been issued 

 in a "half -volume" — a mode of publication which seems to us 

 somewhat inconvenient, as the index is of course reserved for the 

 whole volume. It has, however, the advantage of presenting the 

 book in a size more convenient for reference, 450 pages being 

 amply sufficient to form a volume. The coloured plates which 

 form so attractive a feature of the original issue are excellently 

 reproduced, and it is certain that The Nat:>, 

 will take an important place among English botanical textbooks. 



Dr. Joseph Bancroft, who died at Brisbane on June 16th, was 

 born in Manchester in 1836, and graduated as M.D. at St. Andrew's 

 in 1859. He practised in Nottingham, but was compelled by ill- 

 health to leave England in 1864, and settled at Brisbane. A 

 naturalist throughout his life, he devoted great attention to economic 

 botany, as well as to researches in medical science. He was the 

 first discoverer of the medicinal properties of Duboisia myoporoides, 

 the leaves of which contain a principle now largely used in the 

 ophthalmic surgery. In 1872 Dr. Bancroft investigated the proper- 

 ties of Pituri (another of the Duboisias), the plant used by the 

 aboriginals to chew after the manner of tobacco. He found that the 

 plant contained nicotine in greater quantities than tobacco, the only 

 other plant known to contain it. Numerous other native plants were 

 investigated by him, and some of them he used in his own practice. 

 Among the latter may be mentioned Alstonia and Nesodaphne, which 

 he found of value. On diseases of plants generally, and particur 

 larly of the banana and sugar-cane, he was regarded as an authority. 

 Another of his discoveries was the mode of respiration of shore 

 plants, on which subject he sent a paper to the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh in 1881. In 1886 he exhibited specimens of Queensland 

 plants at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, in connection with 

 which he published a small pamphlet— Covtrifoitinn t<> / ' <>', ' '' 

 for Queensland. His death leaves a gap in the ranks of Australian 



