32 
THE JOUHNAL OE BOTANY 
were not unlike their offspring, only Beryl’s petals were green with 
fewer markings, and the father’s petals were a brownish tint. The 
patience required by orchid growers can be imagined when you 
realise that the ancestors of some of the flowers lived thousands of 
miles apart. ‘ Most of my orchids had their origin in the forests of 
South America, and some in the vast denseness of African forests,’ 
said Mr. Black:: ‘ it sometimes takes twenty years to produce a 
generic orchid.’ ” 
The first volume of Mr. Ridley’s Flora of the Malay Peninsula 
containing the Polypetalse has been issued by Messrs. L. Reeve & Co. : 
it forms a handsome book of 950 pages, and includes 75 useful 
figures by Mr. J. Hutchinson. An introduction describes the area 
and physical features of the Peninsula and defines the botanical 
areas, enumerating with brief biographical details the botanists and 
collectors.who have contributed to our knowledge of the Flora and 
the principal publications relating to it; there is also a synopsis of 
the orders and an excellent index. A new genus of doubtful affinity, 
based on “very incomplete specimens” and placed at the end of 
Olacinece , is named Cautleya , after its discoverer. 
The Proceedings of the Linnean Society from Nov. 1921 to 
June 1922 contains, besides the usual accounts of meetings, abstracts 
of some of the papers read, among which Botany is represented by a 
“Note on the Occurrence of Brachiomonas sp.,” by Mr. W. Neilson 
Jones, and “The Life-History of Staurastrum Dickiei var . paral- 
lelumf by Mr. Charles Turner, the latter illustrated by a plate. 
The number also includes “Notes on a Catalogue of the Linnean 
Herbarium,” by Hr. Daydon Jackson, which contains information 
additional to that already published in lus Index to the Herbarium 
and elsewhere. 
The Department of Agriculture of South Africa has issued an 
interesting report on the value of Prickly Pear ( Opuntia ) as a fodder 
for sheep. The results of a series of experiments by Messrs. A. Stead 
and E. S. N. Warren show that sheep take the “ leaves ” readily, 
and that those getting plenty require no water to drink, hence the 
plant is invaluable in times of drought, both as a source of water and 
of food; sheep can live for at least 250 days on prickly pear only, 
and it “ is a valuable succulent roughage for fattening and production 
purposes in general, provided it is fed with protein-supplying food¬ 
stuffs as, for example, lueern-hay.” 
The late Reginald Farrer’s last book The Bainboiu Bridge 
(Arnold, 1921) abounds in references to and descriptions of plants, 
including, we believe, names of species hitherto undescribed: }mt the 
volume is absolutely destitute of anything in the shape of an index ! 
It is little short of scandalous that a book of this kind should be 
issued without some key whereby its contents can be made available, 
and we should welcome any enactment by which such issue should be 
made penal. 
The Naturalist for December contains a list of the fungi observed 
in Bishopsdale, N. Yorkshire, on the occasion of the visit of the York¬ 
shire Naturalists’ Union to that region in August last. The number 
also contains “ West Yorkshire Botanical Notes ” (largely on mosses) 
by Mr. A. Wilson. 
