217 
Mexico, forming dense thickets on the borders of streams, generally in 
low rather moist soil. It has a heavy, hard, close-grained wood of an 
orange colour str ed with red. The seeds are sai v to contain an 
exceedingly poisonous alkaloid known as Sophorine. The Indians in the 
neighbourhood of San Antonio us? the seeds as an intoxicant, half a seed 
eanan exhilaration followed by sleep orng two or three days. 
whole bean is said to be sufficient to kill a m 
A Handbook of Avsrrarran Funat has been prepared by Dr. M. C. 
Cooke, A.L.S., Mycologist in the Herbarium of the Royal Gardens, and 
published under the authority of the several Governments of the 
Australian Sape It contains a full description of all the fungi so 
ar known to occur in Australia and Tasmania, number 2,084 species. 
All the genera jc illustrated by 36 plates, 20 of which are coloured. 
NDBOOK OF IniDEX.—Mr. J. G. Baker, F.R.S., has in the press 
fin dbook of Irideæ, E uin with those which he has already published 
on the neighbouring orders Amaryllidex and Bromeliacez. order 
eontains about 60 pilos 'a and 800 decies nearly half of the latter 
being concentrated at the Ca The large garden genera of the order 
are Crocus, Iris, and Gladiolus, More than one-half | the book is already 
printed, and it will be completed in a few weeks, 
New Care LirrcExX.—Mr. J. G. Baker has published in a recent 
ers of Engler's Jahrbuch ( a XV., Part iii, p. 5) descriptions of 
to the following genera, viz., g^ hne 1, Kniphofia 3, Tulbaghia t 
Urginea 2, Drimia 1, Dipcadi 1, Scilla 1, DAUHTRE l, Lackenalia 
2, and Massonia 2. The three "Kniphofias and several of the others 
have been collected lately in Pondo-land, which lies on the fann coast 
south of Natal, by a German collector of the name of Bachma 
New Yucca AND ALOE.—T wo of the new Liliaceæ seen in a flow 
e Riviera 
eins of the Kew Bele) have developed their flowers this summer, 
and have been fully described by Mr. Baker in the Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
These are Yucca Hanburii (Kew Bulletin, 1892, p. 8), from the 
Rocky Mountains, a species nearly allied to F. angustifolia, Pursh. 
(Bot. Mag., tab. 2236), and fs Ca ape Aloe, allied to Aloe arborescens 
mentioned on page 10 of Baker's report. The latter is a very 
distinct plant, and a valuable addition to the small number of large 
showy species of the genus. It has suberect stems, laxly-disposed 
— dtp a dense raceme of deflexed us — flowers and 
much-e ted stamens. It has been named 4 aurantiaca, and 
full rosmesiewnd will be found in din Gardeners’ waite 1892, Vol. I., 
page 780, 
The e progress made in a Srsar, Hemp industry at the Turks and Cai icos 
Islands is discussed as follows in the Blue Book Report (Jamaica) for 
1891 :— The cultivation of the Pita (Sisal) plant has A fair progress, 
