236 Chronicles of Science. [April, 



taneously "with, but perfectly distinct from, this series, M. Eulenstein 

 intends also to publish another series, which will form, as it were, a 

 standard collection of the various types of Diatoniaceae, and will 

 contain typical representatives of nearly all the known genera, 

 recent and fossil. The number of collections belonging to the first 

 mentioned series will necessarily be extremely limited ; but it is to 

 be hoped that the Eoyal Microscopical Society will be the depository 

 of one of them. Those of the second series would appear to be 

 almost indispensable for all real students of the Diatomaceae, and we 

 can only wish that If. Eulenstein may find his praiseworthy labour 

 properly appreciated. 



A New Arrangement of Plants. — Mr. Benjamin Clarke, F.L.S., 

 has at length brought out a large folio work on which he has been 

 for some years engaged. He calls it ' The Natural System of 

 Botany,' and it contains the results of a vast deal of labour and 

 observation directed towards a new classification of Phanerogamous 

 plants. The facts expressed in the various tables as regards the 

 relative position of the ovule and its parts to the axis of the flower 

 are no doubt valuable ; and to aid him in working out this inquiry, 

 Mr. Clarke received a grant of 107. from the Boyal Society. It 

 does not appear, however, that the classification proposed is in any 

 way a natural one, — indeed, it cannot be expected that the consider- 

 ation of one group of organs alone should furnish data for such a 

 classification. Many botanists are already acquainted with some 

 of Mr. Clarke's observations from his papers published in the 

 'Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' in 1853, and in the Linnsean Society's 

 transactions. The book is printed and published for the author, and, 

 inasmuch as it is the work of many years of patient inquiry, he 

 deserves the encouragement and support of his fellow-labourers. 



New and Bare British Plants. — Dr. Moore, at a recent meeting 

 of the Natural History Society of Dublin, showed specimens of 

 Eriophorum Alpinum, L., which had been found growing in con- 

 siderable abundance on the north margin of Grurthavabra Lake, in 

 county Cork, by H. J. Byder, Esq. Hitherto this plant has only 

 been known in the British Isles from Forfar and Sutherlandshire. 

 It grows in Lapland and Norway on low bogs and marshes, and 

 occurs also in North America. Mr. Stewart, of Belfast, has also 

 discovered the sweet flag Acorus calamus, L., in the Lurgan canal, 

 in the north of Ireland. This plant is met with in the counties of 

 Norfolk and Suffolk, but was supposed not to have crossed the Irish 

 Channel at all. 



Potamogeton decipiens, Nolte, has been discovered at Bath by 

 Mrs. Hopkins, and is figured in the March number of the Journal 

 of Botany. It is quite new to the British flora, having as yet been 

 gathered only in Northern Germany, in Holstein, Slesvig, and the 

 vicinity of Hamburg. It is not included in French floras. The 



