1879. | Botany. 391 
these beautiful plants as Mr. Davenport, and should this mode of : 
study be extended to the higher plants, botanical science in this 
country would take a much higher stand than it now does, as 
collecting, cataloguing and the framing of local lists is but pre- 
liminary to the genuine study of the life-history, classification, 
genealogy and physiology of plants. 
GOODALE’S CONCERNING A FEW Common Prants.—This is a 
small 16mo of 61 pages, issued as one of the Guides for Science 
Teaching, published by the Boston Society of Natural History. 
t is used by the teachers of the public schools of Boston, who 
to the Knibe of five hundred attend the Teachers’ School of 
Science of this popular society. The present little work is a most 
successful effort to induce teachers to qualify themselves for 
giving to their pupils a series of object lessons in elementary 
otany. 
ALLEN’s CHARACEÆ AMERICANE.— This is the first part of what 
will prove a most useful monograph of our American Charas. It 
is published by the author, Dr. Timothy F. Allen, 10 E. 36th 
street, New York. A colored plate and a page of text form 
art I. 
BotanicaAL News.—The Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 
for January and February contains a synopsis of discoveries and 
by B; l 
„researches, in 1878, on fresh-water Algæ, Wolle. In the 
March numbet Prof. Eaton describes a new Hawaiian fern, and 
Arthur Hollick contributes a few notes on the abnormal absence 
of color in plants——In the Botanical Gazette for April, J. D. 
Smith records the occurrence of a tropical plant, Ophioglossum 
palmatum, on the west coast of Florida; Mr. C. F. Austin de-- 
scribes a number of new mosses. The number for May contains, 
among others, Notes on some rare plants, by W. Canby ; On yel- 
on snow, by ITG Porter, and Descriptions of some new mosses, 
yG E. Austin. Notes on yae a fungi, by M. C. Cooke, 
iak in Grevillea for March. men’s Journal of Botany for 
April, contains an article on the sources of Chinese matting, by 
H. nce, The relation of forests to rainfall is discussed 
by Prof. J. E. Todd in the Iowa Horticultural Report for 1878. 
He believes with others that the growth of trees may increase the 
rainfall, and does not fear that the future forests of Iowa will ever 
seriously suffer from drouth. e have received from Dr. Her- 
mann Müller a pamphlet giving farther observations on the fer- 
tilization of flowers by insects. (Extracted from the Trans. of 
the Natural History Society of Prussian PT and West- 
v.) 
Aa XXXV, soaks 
