33OOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 
125 
BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 
At tlie meeting of the Linnean Society on February 15th, Mr. It. 
Paulson exhibited 68 species in 27 genera of Lichens collected by 
Mr. Y. S. Summerhayes, of the Oxford University Expedition to 
Spitsbergen in 1921, of which a list was given in our last issue. 
Canon Bulloch-Webster showed a collection of thirty varieties of 
Char a hispid a, explaining that in that genus varietal names are 
discarded, as the variation is so great and so frequent, that confusion 
would be the result, were it attempted. Dr. Daydon Jackson ex¬ 
hibited a small volume for which he had been searching for thirty- 
eight years—C. A. Agardh’s Aphorismi botanici , Dundee, 1817-26,— 
as confirming in a striking degree the practice formerly prevalent in 
Scandinavia down to the middle of the previous century, the Freeses 
being the actual author and the ltespondentes little better than 
dummies. In this volume the text runs on, with 16 title-pages, 
having the names of as many graduates . . . . , interposed between each 
sheet of 16 pages; in no fewer than twelve instances a word is cut in 
two and shared between two ltespondentes. 
Tiie second fascicle of Prof. L. H. Bailey’s Gentes Herb arum 
(Ithaca, N.Y.: 2 dollars), intended for the publication of studies 
from his garden and herbarium, is mainly devoted to a study of 
“ The Cultivated Brassicas.” “ These plants are usually regarded by 
botanists as difficult of close determination, and the common know¬ 
ledge of them is singularly confused.'’ Prof. Baile} r has been study¬ 
ing the genus for more than thirty years; he has grown great 
numbers of them from seeds obtained in widely separated places, and 
has “ taken freely specimens in the wild and in cultivation in different 
countries.” The first part of the paper deals with “the problem” as 
to the native centre of these plants, which has not yet been found: 
next are considered the genera, “ with a general point of view on 
generic segregation ”— Arassica and Sin apis are treated together. 
“ The historic species, with comments on Linnean types ” is followed 
by a description of the species as now recognised, the paper concluding 
with an index or “finding-list of Latin names”: nineteen species 
are described, four of which are new. The descriptions are very full 
and detailed, and the various forms in cultivation are enumerated at 
great length : Miller’s name— A. Napobrassica —is revived for the 
liutabaga or Swede ; it is pointed out that “ Miller was confused on 
the plant,” but if one prefers not to cite [him] for the plant, one 
may fall back on the same combination in Kernel 1 , Oekon. Pfl. iv. 
7. t. 312 (1791). The paper is fully illustrated, and adds one more 
to the valuable series of studies of cultivated plants with which the 
author’s name lias so long been associated. We reproduce (p. 104) 
the note on “ The Thames-side Brassica,” which will be of special 
interest to British botanists. 
We are glad* to learn that the useful series on the “Weeds of 
South Africa” by K. A. Lansdell which is appearing in the Journal 
of the Department of Agriculture, Pretoria, will be brought together 
in a volume which will include an illustrated glossary on the morph- 
