492 Scientific Intelligence. 
(3.) That the sean of copper and arsenic faite a dis- 
tinctly poisonous influence, tending, when present larger 
‘quantity, to check the formation of 1 roots, and either killing the 
plant or so far reducing its vitality as to interfere with nutrition 
and growt 
In the ease of the heavy metals, copper, zinc, arsenic and lead, 
it seems to be probable that their oxides m may under soa cir- 
cumstances become deposited in the tissues of bide ‘plan 
6. Monographie des Composées, par H. Battion, Pari , 1882. 
316.— This is the 8th volume of Baillon’s Histoire des Plantes 
One-third of the volume is occupied with an exposition of the 
references in foot-notes. Now Mr. Bentham filled 370 pages o 
the Genera Plantarum—pages of just the | same size, but of fine 
type—with his characters of the tribes and genera of this order. 
In his laborious and conscientious review of the fam mily, by a 
botanist who is not at all prone to the multiplication of genera, 
d 
for by the reduction of the genera by Baillon to 403. Baillon’s 
specialty is generic consolidation. Yet withal he keeps up several 
genera which we find it impossible to maintain ; and there are 
others which should have been suppressed upon his principles, 
though not upon ours. Deducting these, the genera according to 
Baillon would be only half as many as those of Bentham and 
Hook Ba ena is an able botanist and is entitled to have his 
own views. is plan is not adopted, as being neither philo- 
sophical nor PeucGcaly convenient, it is ‘warnitens as compared 
with the opposite extreme ; and nothing can be easier than to 
‘double up the genera upon a preconceived line after all — ma- 
shee had been well elaborated beforehand. 
uide to the Flora of Seerah Ses and vicinity, by ceaeue 
F, Wiss, A.) pp. 264, 8vo.—This capital piece of work is 
phen ‘by. the U.S. National Museum as Bulletin No. 22, and 
“ one of a series of papers intended to illustrate the collections of 
ape history and ethnology belonging to the United States 
and constituting the Nat ional Museum, of which the Smithsonian 
aes was piaced in charge by Act of Congress of August 
10, 
‘The j fe oductory portion treats first of the range of this “ flora 
Columbiana,” which is said to be limited on the north by the 
Great Falls of the Potomac and on the south by the Mt. Vernon 
estate; it compares the present known flora of the district with 
that of 1830, as exhibited in the Flore Columbiane Prodromus 
by the botanical club of that day; describes in some detail the 
