1168 General Notes. [ November, 
president of the Lambeth (England) Field. Club, to present ina 
popular way many of the more important facts in modern bot- 
any. It is not a text-book, and does not follow text-book 
methods. We have first a pleasant and entertaining account of 
microscopic plants in which Protococcus, Zygnema, Volvox, des: 
mids, diatoms, etc., are described. With this as a basis, Chapter 
II presents the main facts as to plant structure and | 
Then follows an excellent chapter on the fertilization of flowers, 
the opening sentence of which is well worth quoting: “Itis 
popularly held that the chief end of plants is to minister to man's 
sense of the beautiful in form and color, but recent investigations 
of scientific men should dissipate so presumptuous a theory.” _ 
Predatory plants, ferns, mosses and lichens, horsetails, fungi, 
etc., are taken up in various chapters, while less botanical sub- 
jects, such as the folk-lore of plants, planets and animals, plants 
and planets are intermingled. The chapter on the folk-lore of 
plants contains much that is interesting. A paragraph here may — 
serve to show the author's method: “Who was the miscreant 
that altered the popular orthography of Digitalis purpurea from — 
folk’s-glove to foxglove? With that alteration all the poetry and 
the associations of fairyland were taken from the name, True, t 
is still the noblest of our native flowers, and one that will ever be 
a favorite with all; but it was the flower which supplied the ei 
with gloves—delicately tinted silken coverings fit for the hands 
such dainty folk—hence folk’s-glove.” Eres 
The little book is well work reading by even those who i 
versed in botany. Such will find little or nothing that 19 1% 
new, but we venture to say that no one will read it without {ê 
ing repaid for the time so spent. = 
BoranıcaL Nores.—In a paper read at the Minneapolis meet 
ing of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Dr. J. W: Dawson described two Palæozoic species of whata 
supposed new species is named P. egra.——1n 
H. F. Hance describes a new genus of’ Liliace 
of Disporopsis. It has affinities with the genus Poze 
One species (D. fuscò-picta) from the province of Canton 
