Botany. 77 



sisted of more than two hundred models most of which were made 

 of unbaked pipe-clay and being very fragile they had become 

 somewhat injured with time but they have been skilfully restored 

 by Mr. Worthington G. Smith, so that the collection is one of the 

 finest in existence. Probably the only other collections to be 

 compared with it are the wax models made by Pinson after 

 Bulliard's plates in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantesin Paris 

 and the models made by Barla in the Museum at Nice of which 

 there is also a duplicate series in the Ecole de Pharmacie in 

 Paris. The figures which illustrate the Hymenomycetes are from 

 Stevenson's British Fungi and the remainder were prepared by 

 Mr. Smith, who also wrote the text which includes numerous 

 remarks on edible and poisonous properties of the different 

 species, the result of Mr. Smith's large experience. w. G. e. 



2. A Monograph of Lichens found in Britain: being a 

 Descriptive Catalogue of the Species in the Herbarium of the 

 British Museum; by the Rev. James M. Crombie. Part I. 

 8°. Pp. 518. Figs. 74. London, 1894. 



This excellent monograph, printed by order of the Trustees of 

 the British Museum, although treating specially of British Lichens 

 will prove to be of great value to American lichenologists on 

 account of the illustrations of the fruit of different genera, the 

 clear descriptions and well arranged synonymy. In fact we know 

 of no treatise covering the same ground in which the student of 

 lichens will find so much information as to the generic and specific 

 distinctions presented in a compact and comparatively inexpensive 

 form. The present volume includes the greater part of the 

 gymnocarpic forms, the Becidew, Graphidei and angiocarpic 

 forms being reserved for another volume. The order of genera 

 is essentially that of Nylander's Synopsis, but Myriangium, a 

 genus which in our opinion should not be included in lichens in 

 any sense, is placed after the angiocarpous forms. Perhaps the 

 most valuable part of the volume is that relating to Ephebacei and 

 Collemacei, very perplexing families, the descriptions of whose 

 species have hitherto been scattered in different papers and jour- 

 nals not infrequently inaccessible to the student. We regret, 

 however, that in the description of the gonidia, or gonimia as 

 they are called in these families by lichenologists, the author has 

 retained the cumbersome terminology of lichenological treatises 

 instead of referring them to the alga — forms which, to say the 

 least, they resemble. As an illustration we may take Ephebei 

 whose gonidia are described as " gonimia tunicated in nodulose 

 syngonimia." Since they are undistinguishable from the alga- 

 genus Stigonema, a genus which must be familiar to lichenolo- 

 gists as well as others, it seems to us that it would be better to 

 describe the gonidia in this case by the word Stigonematoid. 

 The convenience and accuracy of such an adjective seems to us to 

 be quite independent of the question whether a writer accepts or 

 denies the validity of the alga-fungal theory of the nature of 

 lichens. So far as the general descriptions are concerned they are 



