74 Scientific Intelligence. 



pulously regarded. This involves in some cases changes which 

 are certainly unfortunate, but are, as the author justly remarks, 

 necessary, if anything like permanency in botanical nomenclature 

 is ever to be reached. An instance of this is the discarding of 

 the appropriate and well-established name Magnolia grandifiora 

 for the less agreeable M. foetida. The volume before us contains 

 descriptions of thirty-four species of trees, each illustrated by 

 one or more plates showing foliage, flowers, and fruit. There is 

 a very simple introductory key to the thirteen orders which are 

 treated. The generic and specific descriptions are very full, and 

 are enlivened by the introduction of many interesting facts re- 

 garding the habits, uses, medical properties, history, and even 

 paleophytology of the trees described. We can hardly speak in 

 too high terms of the plates. In conjunction with delicate out- 

 lining, Mr. Faxon has made frequent use of faint surface shading, 

 a method rather unusual in botanic drawings, but here employed 

 with remarkable success. The plates were lithographed in Paris 

 under the direction of the noted botanical artist, M. Riocreux, 

 and reflect much credit upon all who have engaged in their pro- 

 duction. It is only to be regretted that a work of such merit is 

 necessarily expensive, and can be possessed by comparatively 

 few. On this account botanical institutions and reference libra- 

 ries should, wherever possible, place the Silva within reach of 

 students and readers. b. l. k. 



8. Recherches anatomiqiies sur les hybrides ; by M. Marcel 

 Brandza. (Revue generate de botanique, II, Nos. 22-23.)— The 

 study of vegetable hybrids has heretofore been directed almost 

 exclusively to their external characters, and to such of their 

 qualities as appear to be of agricultural or horticultural impor- 

 tance. Some interesting points in their physiology have of 

 course received attention, such for instance as the diminished 

 fertility; and scattered references to their anatomy could un- 

 doubtedly be found. The article before us, however, repre- 

 sents the first attempt to subject a number of hybrids to extended 

 anatomical investigation, with a view to discover the principles upon 

 which the parent characters are combined in their tissues. The 

 examples described are from the genera Rosa, Sorb us, Marrubium, 

 Medicago, Qornus, and Cirsiwn. The author reaches the conclu- 

 sion that in some hybrids the tissues show a juxtaposition, but not 

 a mingling of particular characteristics of the parents. Thus in 

 the stem of " Marrubium Vaillantii" a supposed hybrid of 

 Marrubium vidgare and Leonurus Cardiaca, the arrangement of 

 the collenehyma is closely like that of Marrubium vulgare, w T hile 

 the fibro-vascular bundles correspond in number and position to 

 those of Leonurus, the parents differing conspicuously from each 

 other in both tissues. In other hybrids the tissues possess in all 

 characters an intermediate nature between the parents, as in 

 Medicago falcato-sativ a. In a third less satisfactory category of 

 hybrids, of which the author gives Cirsium arvense-lanceolaturn 

 as an example, the tissues of some organs show the intermediate 



