74 Address. [Feb., 



Afghan Frontier- delimitation Commission, and has returned to England 

 with a large collection of dried plants, of which the main portion con- 

 sisted of about 800 species in 10,000 specimens. These are now being 

 arranged under his own supervision at Kew, and a conspectus of the 

 Flora of the region traversed by the Commission is under preparation 

 by Dr. Aitchison and Mr. W. B. Hemsley, of the Kew Herbarium. 

 This will contain* descriptions of about one hundred new species, besides 

 adding to our knowledge of many obscure plants of considerable econo- 

 mic importance. Foremost among these are those belonging to the 

 Umbellifera, of which several yield valuable gum-resins, known in 

 commerce as gum-ainmoniacum, gum-galbanum, assafoetida, &c. On 

 the North-eastern frontier, Mr. C. B. Clarke has very considerably 

 extended our hitherto scanty knowledge of the Flora of the Naga 

 Hills by his herborizations near Kohima and in Manipur ; while 

 he has added not a few species to the already extensive Flora of the 

 Khasia Hills. Mr. Clarke proceeded to England in November, taking hia 

 collections with him ; and before long we may expect to have something 

 concerning them from his prolific pen. While exploration has been 

 thus vigorously carried on, herbarium work has by no means been 

 neglected. Dr. King, of the Royal Botanic Garden, has, during the 

 year, brought to a conclusion his monograph on the large and difficult 

 genus Ficus on which he has been engaged for some time. Dr. 

 King's observations on the structure of the flowers of the genus 

 have brought to light some hitherto unsuspected sexual arrangements, 

 and, on the basis of these, he has founded a sub-division of the genus 

 into seven sub-genera. A short account of this new classification is 

 contained in a paper read at a recent meeting of this Society. Mr. 

 Duthie, of the Botanical Garden at Saharunpur, a member of our Society, 

 has published during the year, an excellent account of the ■ Fodder 

 grasses of Northern India.' Mr. Duthie 's book affords an admirable 

 illustration of the kind of accurate help which science may be made to 

 give in the ordinary affairs of domestic life. For the book puts us in the 

 way of learning how to feed our cattle and our cavalry and troop horses 

 on the grasses that grow naturally in the neighbourhood of every can- 

 tonment in Upper India, without going to the expense of cultivating 

 exotic plants for fodder. The book which thus helps to deliver us from 

 the tender mercies of the voracious Commissariat contractor is withal 

 fair to look on ; for it is profusely supplied with nature-printed illustra- 

 tions of all the chief grasses of Hindustan proper and of the Panjab. 



* For a fuller description of Dr. Aitchison's work see the issue of Nature for 

 the 23rd of December 1886, and a paper read by him before the Pharmaceutical 

 Society on the 8th December. 



