452 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. - [VoL. XXXIII. 
the recent report of a blue carnation and the long horticultural search 
for a blue rose, it may be of interest to quote Dr. Keegan’s conclu- 
sions: “1. A blue flower is unproducible in species which contain or 
are capable of forming phlobaphenic tannin [7.e., chromogen, which 
on advanced oxidation evolves brown-red or muddy anhydrides more 
than sufficient to neutralize and overcome any tendency to blue color- 
ation incident to the presence of gallic acid], no matter what the 
development of the inflorescence may amount to. 2. A blue flower 
is more likely to be produced in a species having a gamopetalous 
corolla or perianth, and therefore liable to evolve by higher oxidation 
a certain quantity of a high oxybenzoic acid. 3. In species wherein 
the tannin natural to the organism is iron-greening and non-phloba- 
phenic, a blue flower may possibly be producible in a polypetalous 
corolla, provided always that the petals or perianth be large relatively 
to the height of the plant and to the size and robustness of its stem 
and leaves; in this case it is uncertain whether gallic acid is neces- 
sary for the production of the effect, but any way an alkaline compound 
of an oxybenzoic acid would seem to be indispensable.” 
Botanical Notes.— Captain J. Donnell Smith, whose work on 
Central American botany is well and favorably known, publishes an 
enumeration of the plants collected in Central America by Dr. W. C. 
Shannon, as an appendix to Vol. I, Part II, of the report of surveys 
and explorations made from 1891 to 1893 by the Intercontinental 
Railway Commission. The “separates” of the article bear the imprint 
Washington, 1898. 
Professor Peck’s report of the state botanist, reprinted from the 
51st annual report of the New York state museum, as is usual with 
his reports, contains descriptions and figures of a considerable num- 
ber of fungi, several of which are believed to be new to science. It 
is unfortunate that, while the text is in octavo, the plates are of 
quarto size and separately bound. 
At Bologna is preserved, in book form, the herbarium of Aldro- 
vandi, dating from the middle of the sixteenth century. In Malpighia, 
Vol. XII, Fasc. 7—10, Professor Mattirolo, now of Florence, but until 
recently stationed at the University of Bologna, gives an annotated 
catalogue of the plants represented in the first volume of this 
herbarium, his list reaching 557 numbers. 
Acalypha hispida, a New Guinea plant which, under the name of 
A. sanderi, is attracting a good deal of attention in horticultural 
