16 
NOTICES OF SERIALS. 
Hooker’s Journal of Botany, and Kew Garden Miscellany. No. 72, 
January; No. 73, February; No. 74, March, 1855. 8vo. London: Lovell 
Eeeve. Price 2s. each, with a Plate. 
No. 72, January:—Original Information—(Richard Spence) Journal of a Voyage 
up the Amazon and Rio Negro; (George Bentham) On the South American 
Triuridese and Burmanniacese, from the collection of Mr. Spruce; (M. Louis 
Kralik) Botanical Tour in the Regency of Tunis ; The late Professor Reinwardt. 
Botanical Information—Plaintain Fibre; “ The Big Tree” (Wellington!a gigantea, 
Lindl.). We have here extracts from the Californian Farmer , a weekly journal, 
published at San Francisco, relative to the “Big Tree,” and written by a Dr. C. 
F. Winslow, and which certainly appears to be composed in that “ go-a-head” 
style, so characteristic of the Yankees. Some of these gigantic sons of the forest, 
measured by the Doctor, were ninety-four feet in circumference at the root, and 
one of them was four hundred and fifty feet from head to foot (!). Another was 
ten feet in diameter, at three hundred and fifty feet from its uptorn root (!!). Dr. 
Winslow is very severe upon Professor Lindley for applying to it the name of 
Wellingtonia, and, without much regard to the rights of priority, subtitutes, what we 
suppose can only be regarded as a synonyme, that of the famous Washington. 
Bourgeau’s Plants of the Canary Islands; M. Huet du Pavilion’s Plants of Sicily; 
Mr. Botteri’s Mexican Plants ; Mr. Spruce’s Plants of the Amazon. Notices of 
Books—Stark’s Popular History of British Mosses; Archer’s First Steps to 
Economic Botany. 
No. 73, February:—Original Papers—(George Bentham) Florida Hongkong- 
ensis; (James Mosley) Extract of a Letter from; (Dr. Harvey) Extracts of 
Letters from, dated Melbourne, September 5, and September 15, 1854 ; (Dr. 
Harvey) Characters of some Genera of Plants recently discovered by Mr. James 
Drummond in Western Australia. Botanical Information—Note on the Vegeta¬ 
tion of Roumelia and Bulgaria ; Nomenclator Filicum ; Botany of Ceylon, and 
Botanic Gardens of Peradenia; Expedition to Sicily and the Abruzzos; New 
Collections of Dried Plants; New Proteaceae of Australia. 
No. 74, March:—Original Papers—(C. F. Meisner) New Proteacese of Aus¬ 
tralia ; (James Mosley) Extract of a Letter from; (T. C. Archer) On Two 
Fibres from Brazil, with a Note by Sir W. J. Hooker. Botanical Information — 
Information respecting the Mora Tree (Mora excelsa, Benth.') in Trinidad; Note 
from Sir John Bowring, relating to the Flowering of the Rice-paper Plant. “ This,” 
writes Sir J. Bowring from Hong Kong, December 2, 1854, to Sir W. J. Hooker, 
“is one of your desiderata—the flower of the rice-paper plant. The flowers which 
I enclose, grow in wand-like branches, some of them four feet long, which, to your 
all-learnedly botanical eye, will be a sufficient description. The plant from which 
I plucked the flowers is about seven feet high, and covers, I should think, a cir¬ 
cumference of twenty feet.” Notices of New Books—Index Filicum, a Synopsis of 
Ferns, by T. Moore, F.L.S.; Victoria Regia, or the Great Water-lily of America, 
by J. F. Allen; Flora van Nederland en zijne overzeesche Bezittingen, by Tuin- 
bouw. 
