360 
POPULAK SCIENCE EEYIEW. 
degrees, and on the west coast is only 14 degrees. The mean temperature of 
Ireland is as high as though the island were 15 degrees nearer to the equator. 
Euphorbia palustris in Sussex. — A new station for this plant, hitherto 
confined to the neighbourhood of Bath, has been recorded by Mr. W. B. 
Hemsley, who found this Euphorbia four years ago in the vicinity of 
Ditchling, but, until corrected by Mr. Baker, believed it to be a form of 
E. amygclaloides. 
The Botanical Department of the British Museum is undergoing rapid and 
extensive development under the superintendence of Mr. J. J. Bennet, F.R.S. 
During the year 1865, we see by this gentleman’s report that the following 
additions have been made to the collection : — 1,500 species of plants, in the 
form of an herbarium; 269 species of plants from the Shetland Isles ; 250 
British fungi ; 5 microscopic fungi ; 80 species, illustrating a monograph of 
the British Cladoniae ; 269 species of Swedish phaenogamous plants ; 200 plants, 
forming cent. 34 and 35 of Billot’s “ Flora Gallise 1,000 species from the 
Tyrol, 100 being fasciculi 23 and 24 of the “ Erbario Crittogamico Italiano 
400 of the rarer plants of Sicily ; 76 roses ; 273 European mosses ; 100 fungi ; 
130 algae ; 30 microseopic'slides of diatomaceae ; 1,078 species of South African 
plants ; 1,600 from the Zulu country ; 2,850 from Venezuela ; 2,127 phaeno- 
gamous plants from Cuba ; 2,000 garden specimens from Mr. John Smith’s 
collection ; and 100 fruits and seeds from Mexico ; making in all the enor- 
mous number of 13,027 specimens accumulated in a single year. — Vide 
Official Report. 
What forrhs the Corona in Narcissus ? — To this question a distinguished 
physiological botanist, Mr. W. G-. Smith, replies, — the leave-stipules, 
and not the perianth nor the stamens. He states that since only 42 out of 
the 110 genera which the family Amaryllidaceae possesses exhibit the corona, 
this organ must not be regarded as a typical one, but should be looked on 
as an appendage. The transition, he says, from leaf to sepal, from sepal 
to petal, and from this latter to stamen, and stamen to pistil, has been often 
described, but no attention has been paid to the subject of the metamorphosis 
of the leaf-stipule. Now, he considers that the true explanation of the corona 
in the small section of the order in which it appears consists in the recogni- 
tion of a series of confluent petal-stipules leaving the normal six stamens and 
six petals as in the rest of the Amaryllidaceae. Dr. Masters considers the 
corona a series of mystified stamens ; but Mr. Smith very ingeniously and 
fairly employs his (Dr. Masters’s) arguments to support his own views. In 
concluding his able essay he says, “ It may be objected that stipules of no 
sort form any character of the natural order Amaryllidaceae ; but the answer 
to this is, that stipules have little or no value as a family character, as in 
Hederacece (or Araliaceae) stipules are present in some genera and absent in 
others. This I consider exactly equivalent to the presence or absence of 
the corona in the genera of Amaryllidaceae.” That abnormal growths of the 
corona of Narcissus more nearly approach the true form of stipules is shown 
very distinctly by some of Mr. Smith’s drawings of abnormal forms of the 
the corona. — Vide The Journal of Botany , June. 
The Vacancy in the Botanical Section of the French Academy. — This has 
been filled by the election of M. Trecul, whose numerous researches we 
have had from year to year to record and abstract from. The vacancy was 
