230 
Scientific Intelligence, 
county, several aged fig-trees are growing as standards, and 
seldom fail to produce ripe fruit. They are chiefly of the kind 
called Violette or Bourdeaux Fig ; but the largest tree is of the 
Marseilles variety. This remarkable standard fig-tree measures 
6 feet 9 inches in circumference, at two feet from the surface 
of the ground : it there divides into two large arms, each of 
which is 3 feet and a half in circumference ; and the extended 
branches of the tree cover a space of thirty feet in diameter. 
30. Plants of Nepaul. — Mr David Don, keeper of the Lam- 
bertian Herbarium, is about to publish a Prodromus Flora Ne- 
palensis. In this work, many new plants will be made known, 
not a few of them originally discovered by our distinguished 
countryman Dr Francis Buchanan Hamilton. 
31. Spikenard of the Ancients. — Among other interesting ar- 
ticles in the Flora Nepalensis, we understand that a full and 
correct botanical description of the plant which yielded the 
spikenard of the ancients, may be expected. This is the Vale- 
riana J atamansi. It is somewhat remarkable, that although 
Sir William Jones was the first who determined this point, he 
has, by mistake, described and figured another species of Vale- 
rian in place of the jatamansi, viz. V. Hardwickii, or at least 
he has confounded this species with the true one ; lor he de- 
scribes the radical leaves as being cordate, while the leaves of 
V. jatamansi are lanceolate. In Mr Lambert’s rich collection, 
there are specimens of the jatamansi with the fibrous roots : 
these agree exactly with what was formerly sold in the shops, 
and answer well the description given by ancient authors, as to 
the root resembling the tail pf an ermine. 
32. Translation of Proton's Essay on the Asclepiadea. — Our 
celebrated countryman’s classical Essay 66 On the Asclepiadeae,” 
published in the 1st volume of the Wernerian Memoirs, has 
been translated into Latin in Germany, under the following title, 
<c Asclepiadeas recensitse a Roberto Brown. Ex idiomate An- 
glico transtulit D. Carolus Boriwogus. Edidit Casparus, Comes 
Sternberg, 1819-' 1 
IV. GENERAL SCIENCE, 
33. New System of‘ Mineralogy. — Dr Brewster is preparing 
for the press a Treatise on Mineralogy , founded chiefly on the 
