172 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIII. 
Ranunculus Andersonii Gray is made the type of a new genus, 
Beckwithia, by Jepson, in the October number of Ærythea. Unfortu- 
nately, the fact that the two are identical was not discovered soon 
enough to prevent the one species from appearing on the plate as 
B. Andersonit, and in the text as B. Austine. 
Anton Pestalozzi’s revision of the Capparidaceous genus Boscia, 
reprinted from the Bulletin of the Boissier Herbarium, forms No. 7 of 
the “ Mittheilungen aus dem botanischen Museum der Universitat 
Zürich.” 
The acaulescent violets of the eastern states are the subject of 
further observations by C. L. Pollard, in the Botanical Gazette for 
November. Twenty-seven species of this type are now distinguished 
in the key, but even then the author adds that he fully realizes “ the 
futility of constructing any key in the hope that it will afford conclu- 
sive determinations of every unusual form.” “Habit as well as 
habitat, the texture of the herbage, color of the flowers, position of 
the cleistogenes, nervation, shape and degrees of pubescence of the 
leaves, nature of the surrounding vegetation,” are all taken into 
consideration in the separation of species for which herbarium 
material is said to be absolutely worthless unless one is fortified by 
previous familiarity with the growing plant. 
Hydrophyllum tenuipes is the name given by Heller in the Buletin 
of the Torrey Club for November to a plant from the state of 
Washington. 
The hybrid between Lodelia syphilitica and L. cardinalis, which 
sometimes occurs spontaneously in this country, appears to have 
been produced in cultivation in France, and to have been again 
crossed on ZL. cardinalis (Annales Soc. Bot. de Lyon. 22: 8). 
Part III of Professor Comes’s memoir on tobacco’ is a classified 
account of the introduction, cultivation, and use of tobacco in Asia 
and Oceania. 
M. C. de Candolle contributes a paper entitled “ Piperaceæ 
Bolivian ” to the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club for Novem- 
ber. Two new species of Piper and ten of Peperomia are described. 
Actinidia Kolomicta, a climbing plant, the foliage of which is quite 
as brilliantly colored as that of the commonly cultivated and popular 
Acalyphas, is figured in color in Die Gartenwelt of November 6. 
1 Comes, O. Del tabacco. Storia, geografia, statistica, eo agrologiz 
patologia. III. Napoli, 1898. (Adi R. Ist. d’/ncorrag. di Napoli.) 
