SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
87 
The foreign journals have been remarkably destitute of astronomical 
news lately. This is fortunate, as our summary already exceeds its ordi- 
nary limit. 
BOTANY. 
The u Cybele HibernicaT — The invaluable work which Mr. Watson achieved 
for England is being imitated on the other side of the Irish Channel. 
Messrs. Moore and More have issued a volume upon the subject of the dis- 
tribution of Irish plants, and the facts it lays before the Botanical public are 
both numerous and interesting. Taking the number of species for Britain 
proper at Mr. Watson’s estimate of 1,425 species, the authors of the u Cybele 
Hibernica ” claim for Ireland about 1,000 species. Of the 532 plants of the 
British type, Ireland has all, or very nearly so. The Atlantic type is the only 
other one where she has decidedly more than half, forty-one species out 
of seventy. Of the Boreal species (Highland, Scottish, and intermediate types 
taken together), although there is not a single one of the twelve provinces in 
which there is not a hill of upwards of 2,000 feet in altitude, Ireland has 
only 106 species out of 238. Of the 458 English and local species she has 
just over one-half ; and, finally, out of the 127 Germanic species only 18. 
Doubtful species being left out, the number of species ascertained in Ire- 
land, but not known in Britain proper, is reduced to twelve. Only five of 
these — Saxifraga Geum , Erica mediterranean Arbutus Unedo, Dabcecia poly - 
folia , and Neotinea Intacta — are for Europe as a whole specially south-western 
in their distribution ; whilst three — Sisyrinchium anceps, Neottia gemmipara , 
Naiasjlexilis, — are North American plants not known on the European con- 
tinent. — Vide The Journal of Botany, October. 
The Flora of the Fiji Islands . — The fifth part of this fine work by Dr. See- 
mann has just been published ; this, we learn, completes the Monopetalous 
and Polypetalous orders. 
The Cedars of Lebanon. — A very interesting communication relating to the 
far-famed (t cedar of Lebanon ” has been recently made to the Gardener's 
Chronicle by Dr. J. I). Hooker. Dr. Hooker states that he has been informed 
by the Bev. M. Tristram that an American missionary, Mr. Jessup, has dis- 
covered several new groves of cedar-trees. Of these there are five, three of 
great extent, east of ’Ain Zabalteh, in the Southern Lebanon. This grove 
lately contained 10,000 trees, and had been purchased by a barbarous sheikh 
from the more barbarous Turkish government for the purpose of trying to 
extract pitch from the wood; the experiment failed; the sheikh was 
ruined, but the result was the destruction of several thousand trees. One of 
the trees measured fifteen feet in diameter, and the forest is full of young trees, 
springing up with great vigour. He also found two small groves on the 
eastern slope of Lebanon, overlooking the Buka’a, above El Medeuk ; and 
two other large groves, containing many thousand trees, one above El Baruk, 
and another near Ma’asiv, where the trees are very large and equal to any 
others ; all are being destroyed for firewood. Still another grove has been 
