89 Scientific Intelligence. 
female soon died out, while the male, thanks to these false tubers, 
has become a weed. 
Equally interesting to pomologists and to botanists, is a com- 
munication in Russian, by a M. Wilkins, who sends from Feringba 
in the province of Khiva, the figures of peach-stones, filling two 
folio plates, with explanations, —designed to show the presumed 
genealogy of the varieties: it is an instructive series. Happily,. 
Dr. Maximowicz gives an abstract of the paper in French, and ap- 
pends some notes. He remarks that while in Western Asia and 
Europe, where the peach is prized as a fruit, it is this which has 
developed so many and great variations, while in China and 
Japan, where ripe peaches are less esteemed (being thought un- 
wholesome), and the tree enters into ornamental cultivation, it is 
the flowers which are greatly varied. A. G. 
2. Minor Boranicat Norrs.—Mr. Maw has completed his 
Monograph of the genus Crocus, a superb royal quarto volume, 
with 81 hand-colored plates, maps, vignettes, &c., published by 
Dulau & Co., London. From Beccari we have received the second 
part of the third volume of Malesia, mainly devoted to Asiatic 
Palms. Part 12 of the second volume of the new (Botanical) 
series of the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London is 
occupied with a paper by Mr. Fawcett, of the British Museum, 
On new species of Balanophora and .Thonningia, with a note 
on Brugmansia Lowii ; with four fine plates. 
Jahrbuch des Kéinigl. botanischen Gartens und des botanischen 
Museum zu Berlin, Band iv, edited by Professor Kichler, Dr. 
Garcke, and Dr. Urban, has just appeared. The larger papers are 
by E. Fischer on the Phalloidew; Loew, on the relations of insects 
to plants in the Botanic Garden (an extensive article, which we 
propose to give some account of); Wenzig on Old World Oaks ; 
Urban, Miscellanea in the Botanic Garden and Museum and On 
Pollenisation in Loasacee, and Schumann, on Comparative Morph- 
ology of the Flowers in the cucullate Sterculiacee. We learn with 
great sorrow that Dr. Eichler’s health is seriously impaired. 
Recent additions to Canadian Filicinee, by 'T. J. W. Burgess, 
forms an article of 10 pages, quarto, in the Transactions of the 
Royal Society of Canada, just issued. 
Additions to the Flora of Washington and vicinity (i. e., 
additions to Mr. Ward’s excellent catalogue), by F. H. Knowlton, 
make a pamphlet separately issued from the third volume of the 
Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 
History and Biology of the Pear- blight, by J. o Arthur, is the 
thesis presented for the doctorate in science to Cornell University 
in June last, aad now published by the author in the Proceedings 
-of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 24 pages 8vo, 
and a plate. The whole history of this fearful blight is given in 
detail, the most curious fact being that it is peculiar to Atlantic 
North America, where it has been known for almost a hundred 
years. The plate gives figures of the bacterium, which, according 
to Professor Burrill’s discovery, produces the disease; also the 
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