1 882.] Botany. 135 



Gardener's Chronicle. The leaf which is pinnatified, is from two 

 to two and a half feet wide, and is borne upon a thick petiole be- 

 tween three and four feet long. The spathe, fifteen inches long-, 

 and borne upon a scape eight inches 1 1 i - 1 1 , is of a brown coppery 

 tint inside mottled with green, while the spadix is of a pale pink 

 color. It will doubtless prove to be a valuable acquisition to our 



list of ornamental plants. Rev. M. J. Berkeley describes a 



new parasite upon the lilac in the Gardener's Chronicle. It is 

 evidently one of the Peronosporeae, and is named by Air. Berkeley, 

 Ovularia syringce. The conidia (acrospores) are large and ovoid, 

 and occur singly on the ends of the hyphae which protrude 

 through the stomata. The parasite "produces large brown 

 patches, sometimes occupying almost the whole of the leaf." Has 



this yet appeared in this country? A leaf of the giant water 



lily (Victoria rcgia ) -rowing in Lake Nuna in Peru is recorded 

 by Paul Marcoy in the Wiener Illitstrirtc Gartenzcitung as having 

 a circumference ot 24 feet g% inches, and weighing between 13 

 and 14 pounds. One of the flowers measured 4 feet 2 inches in 

 circumference, and weighed three and a half pounds. The outer 



petals were nine inches in length. Dr. Vasey in the December 



Botanical Gazette describes three new species of grasses, viz: 

 Melica Hallii from Colorado and the Great Plains of British 

 America; Spon ts ; < from Soda Springs, California, and 



Poa pnrpurasccits from Oregon, and the Yellowstone region. 



In the same journal some one under the pseudonym of" Emcsby" 

 puts in a plea for Systematic Botany, or rather, it would appear, 

 for what has been called Analytical Botany, as opposed to histo- 

 logical and physiological Bota'nv. The writer apparently places 

 a higher value uporTthe " identification " of a fzw plants, or the 

 finding of a " new species " than upon that study of the structure 

 and function of plants which alone can enable us to understand 

 them as living things. His ideal botanv is apparently one which 



culminates in the study and description of species! M. 



Lechantier read a paper recently before the Academy of Sciences, 

 Paris, upon the modifications in the composition of plants pre- 

 served in silos. Indian corn and clover lost a little of their 

 nitrogenous matter; but the loss of glucosides was much greater; 

 the chief loss being now in the glucose and sugar group, now in 

 the starch and cellulose. Fatty matter, on the other hand, in- 

 creased. Part 1 of the " Transactions o\ the Massachusetts 



Horticultural Society" for 1881, has just appeared. It contains 

 in addition to much of interest to horticulturists, many lists of 



trees, shrubs and other p] mts int. restin \ I » the botanist also. ■ 



figures and popular descriptions of the Short-leaved Skullcap 

 (Scutellaria brer folic, from Texas, and two fine species of Dahlia 

 (£>. Intea and I\ .>', , r . n * 1 , 1U' * 1 " , 'it» cultivation, 



are given in the December American Agriculturist, Good 



figures of Chara baltica Bruz., var C. coniraria 



