Short Notes and Queries. 



157 



illness, till of him may appropriately be said 



*' Old experience hath attained 



To something like prophetic strain." 



And so, in addition to other important work, we have this unpretentious 

 book with its brown paper back — ^'dear, as books go now," as someone 

 remarks, but which we conjecture will soon be difficult to be purchased, 

 as only a limited number of copies have been printed. In it we find, as 

 far as we can judge, food for future years, for no superficial study can 

 grasp the large questions which are raised by the author, and a conscien- 

 tious student must feel that before he can accept or reject the author's 

 conclusions, he must have a wide and clear knowledge of the plants in 

 question. Here are shown that characters used by other systematists are 

 unreliable, and systems so based are shaken or overthrown by the 

 author's genera reduced in rank, species reduced into varieties, &c., &c. 

 Fortunately the author is not one of those iconoclasts who pull down a 

 system and have nothing to set up in its place, for we find here outlines 

 of a natural arrangement, supported by scientific illustrations, and indi- 

 cations and suggestions of affinities — some perhaps bold, as, for instance, 

 when sketching the affinities of several genera he states that we shall 

 probably find with every tribe a genus having pouched fruit — which, if 

 not found hitherto, has either escaped our notice, or, being weaker than 

 other plants, has succumbed to them in the struggle for place, or has not 

 yet been evolved. It would be difficult to indicate, in the short space at 

 our disposal, the affinities pointed out and the systems suggested, with an 

 account of the characters upon which the author bases his conclusions ; 

 suffice to mention th^t the mode of insertion of the branches on the stem, 

 the origin and structure of the angles of the perianth, the structure of the 

 walls of the capsule, and the number of the sexual organs, are the 

 author's leading characters ; and in this memoir is the method proposed 

 by him well demonstrated. Several new genera are proposed by him : 

 one to contain the J ung. albescens of Hooker, another the two new species 

 of Dr. Carrington, Jung, myriocarpa and Jung. Nevicensis. The species 

 peculiar to our flora are all fully elucidated and described, and as they 

 are amongst the most perplexing of any in the tribe Jungermaniacece, all 

 British hepaticologists are under obligation to the author for making 

 these the special object of his study. Several new additions to our flora 

 are made : Cephalozia heterostipa, Carr., et Spruce, which may be lying 

 hidden in many herbaria as an alpine form of Jung, inflata, Huds., with 

 which it has some points in common, but is distinguished by its postical 

 branches, some flagelliform, the presence of stipules, and difierent 

 perianth ; Cephalozia leucantha, S., found by J. Sim on rotten wood 

 near Banchory, Scotland — a species previously found by Continental 

 botanists in similar localities, but confounded by them with Cephalozia 

 catenulata (Huben. ) from which it is quite distinct, being of a paler color, 

 leaves of a difierent shape, &c. Cephalozia aeraria, Pears. , found about 

 the mouths of old copper mines in Wales is a small species distinguished 



