tribution. Having been supplied with an almost complete suite of the specimens upon which these works are based, through the generosity of the directors of the Imperial Botanic Garden and of the Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, we wish to collate the various representative forms both with our Japanese materials and with their American relatives before we offer any definite remarks. Suffice it now to say, that the Amoor flora offers several additional species identical with peculiarly Eastern North American ones: e. g. Acer spicatum, Pilea pumila, Asplenium thelypteroides, and Symplocarpus fœtidus! Also several closely representative ones; such as Caulophyllum robustum, doubtless the same as the Japan plant, which in fruit answers perfectly to our C. thalictroides, and I still suspect not distinct from it; and Maximoviczia Chinensis, Rupr. (to which evidently belongs Sphærostema Japonicum, Gray), a close counterpart of our Schizandra; Acer tegmentosum, very nearly our A. Pennsylvanicum; Hylomecon vernalis which seems very close to our Stylopnorum diphyllum; and Plagiorhegma dubium, which has the look of a monstrous dicarpellary Jeffersonia. Indeed, good flowers are still wanting to make it at all certain it is not a Jeffersonia! Very remarkable indeed is this division of monotypic or nearly monotypic genera or groups between Northeastern Asia and Northeastern America, of which so extended a list can now be given,-and very suggestive is it (at least where the species are identical or nearly so) of a comparatively recent communication between the two countries. 64 A. G. 2. Harvey's Thesaurus Capensis, No 2, has come to hand. The plates (26-50) are better printed and do more justice to Dr. Harvey's facile pencil than those of the first part. Among the illustrations is a new Crotalaria, a sort of first fruits of the botany of Lake Ngami ;" an interesting new Bixaceous genus (Rawsonia), with petaloid scales "evidently homologous with the crown of Passiflora, and with the inner stamens hypogynous, the outer perigynous"; also a fine new Scuphularineous genus, Bowkeria.-No. 3, just received, continues the work to plate 75. One of the plates illustrates a new genus of the Passion-flower family, with blossoms no larger than chickweed. A. G. 3. Hooker's species Filicum, being Descriptions of all known Ferns, illustrated with Plates. Part ix, or vol. iii, part 1. pp. 64, tab. 141-170.— This portion of this important and standard work contains the genera Lomaria and Blechnum, and excellent figures of 23 species. The most interesting Fern to us, here illustrated, is the Blechnum doodiodes of Hooker, known only from two specimens gathered by Douglas somewhere in Northwestern America, "probably up Frazer's River": the question is whether the plant may not prove to be a remarkable variation of Lomaria Spicant, which inhabits that region, and is the only Lomarioid Fern of so northern a latitude. A. G. Part x, or vol. iii, part 2 of this important work has just come to hand. It comprises the first part of the very large and very difficult genus Asplenium, the reduction of which to order will be a great boon to botanists. 4. Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, No. 14: Botany. -This part concludes Prof. Andersson's account of the Salices of the East Indies, 34 species, of which many are new. Mr. Spruce has a short article on the Piassaba Palm (Leopoldinia Piassaba) of the Rio Negro of the Am azon, the long fibrous beard of whose petioles (vestiges of the membrane which envelopes the frond in vernation) is so important for cordage, &c. On young palms this pendant beard is four feet or more in length, and reaches to the ground. Besides this useful fibre, the pulp of the ripe fruit of this palm is said to yield the most delicious of all palm-drinks, having great resemblance to cream both in color and taste. The remaining article is one by Mr. Mitten, upon various new Musci of New Zealand, Tasmania, and various parts of the Southern hemisphere. No. 15, contains Observations on the Growth and time of Appearance of some of the Marine Alge, by Dr. Cocks; and another of the Præcursores ad Floram Indicam, by Drs. Hooker and Thomson. The present paper is devoted to the Balsaminea, amounting to about one hundred species, notwithstanding a large reduction. The great mass of the order belongs to India; the extra-Indian Balsams known being about eight in more oriental parts of Asia and Maylasia; about as many more in Africa and Madagascar, three in Europe and Siberia, and two in North America. The Indian species are "so universally and excessively prone to vary" that they have given their monographer immense trouble and small satisfaction. We may remark that our two American species and I. Nolitangere of the Old World seem to run together; at least, intermediate forms occasionally appear which strongly suggest a common origin. A. G. No. 16. contains a paper by Mr. Babington on the forms or species compared with Fumaria capreolata, L.; another on a new Butter-tree of Southeastern Africa by T. Caruel of Florence, the tree which Bertoloni supposed to be the shea-tree mentioned by Mungo Park, and which he described as the type not only of a new genus but of a new order. Mr. Caruel shows that the present tree is a Combretum, and doubtless not the shea-tree, the only grounds for considering them the same being that both belong to Africa, and both produce a kind of vegetable butter. Mr. Oliver, a young English botanist of promise, describes some new South American species of Utricularia (two of which are figured), with notes on Polypompholyx and Akentra, showing that Benjamin established the latter in a mistaken observation, and that the plant is an Utricularia. Mr. Spruce gives a very interesting account of a visit to the Cinchona forests of the Quitenian Andes. The Cascarilla roja was said to have a milky juice, a remarkable circumstance for a Rubiaceous plant. It appears that the juice as it flows from a wound is colorless, but that it turns white the instant it is exposed to the air, and in a few minutes changes to red. Mr. Moore announces the discovery in England of Lastrea remota (Apidium remotum, Braun), a form which has been confounded with A. rigidum and which appears to be as intermediate between A. spinulosum and A. Filix-mas, as A. rigidum is between the former and A. cristatum. Mr. Oliver continues an account of the British Herbarium now forming for the Linnæan Society; and Mr. Hogg, a note on the Rosa rubella of Winch., giving evidence that it is a mere variety of R. spinosissima. 5. Martius, Flora Brasiliensis.-This great work is conducted with such spirit,-now that the distinguished editor is able to devote his whole attention to it, that three fasciculi reach us at the same moment, viz. : Fasc. 18, part 3, is a supplement to the Myrtacea of Brazil, by Berg, of Berlin. This young botanist is thought to have elaborated the Amer A. G. Of the many new Of ican forms of this great order in an able manner. species and varieties described in this supplement, the greater part are from the Brazilian collection of Riedel, belonging to the Imperial Botanic Garden of St. Petersburg, and furnished to Dr. Berg by Dr. Regel, the accomplished curator of that establishment. To this is appended a tabular view of the geographical distribution of all the known American Myrtaceae, now amounting to 1726 species, of which 1008 are nearly described by Berg (in the Fl. Brazil., and in the Linnæa), and 696 are indigenous to the Brazilian empire. The uses which the plants of the order are known to subserve in Brazil are likewise enumerated. four species the root, or its bark, is used medicinally of three species the fibrous bark is turned to account, among which, from that of a Couratari the natives of the Uapes make clothing; the timber of Couratari legalis,—one of the largest trees of tropical Brazil-is so highly prized for a variety of purposes that its wasteful destruction is forbidden by law, whence the name paos de ley, i. e. ligna legalia: the leaves of several species are used medicinally for their aromatic properties combined with astringency: the flower-buds of a Calyptranthes are used as a substitute for the true Clove, which also is cultivated successfully in Brazil: the berries of no less than 55 species are enumerated as edible, or some of them medicinal; the most important being the Guayavas; five species of Lecythis and the famous Bertholletia excelsa furnish amygdaloid seeds of great richness and pleasantness (Brazil-nuts, &c.). Recent extrabrazilan genera are briefly noted. Luma (Bot. U. S. Expl. Exped.) is altogether overlooked, and in strictness may claim restoration, when the genera come to be revised and considerably reduced, as they probably will be. The three parts of fasc. 18, composing the Myrtographia Brasiliensis compose an entire volume, of 655 pages, with many plates. Fasc. 23, is a continuation of the first fascicle (Musci and Lycopodiaceae), and comprises the Ophioglosseæ, Marattiaceae, Osmundaceae, Schizoaceae, Gleicheniacea, and Hymenophylleæ, by Dr. Sturm, of Nuremberg, with ten plates. One of these is a fine illustration of the rare and curious Ophioglossum palmatum,—a species which, by the way, Mr. Wright has lately collected abundantly in the eastern part of Cuba. Under the name of Osmunda palustris, Schrad., our North American O. spectabilis, a form of the European O. regalis, is figured: it appears to be rather common in the southern part of Brazil. It is interesting to remark that both this and two other more specially North American species, viz. O. cinnamomea and Botrychium Virginicum, occur on the one hand in Brazil, on the other in the Himalayas. The illustrations of the Hymenophyllea are nature-printed, by the Vienna process. This does better for the fronds-so delicate in this tribe-than for the fructification. Fasc. 24, of 215 pages, with 56 plates, contains the first part of Mr. Bentham's elaboration of the Brazilian Leguminosa, including all the Papilionacea except the Dalbergiea and the Sophorea. A double plate, filled with details, illustrates the structure of Arachis, the generic character of which, as well as of its allies, is remodelled, conformably to the observations of Dr. Niesler, as recorded in this Journal, several years ago. We perceive that the North American species referred to Chato calyx (the fruit of the original species being unknown), belong to the allied and older genus Nissolia. Chatocalyx Wislizeni, Gray, is the same as Nissolia platycarpa, Benth. C. Schottii must take the name of Nissolia Schotti. A. G. 6. J. D. Hooker's Flora Tasmania,-the third and concluding part of the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage under Capt. Ross,-is now finished in parts 10 and 11, issued by the enterprising publisher, Lovell Reeve, in February last. The work makes two large quarto volumes, with 200 colored plates. Part 10 concludes the Alga (by Dr. Harvey) and contains the Lichenes (the foliaceous ones by Mr. Babington, the crustaceous by Mr. Mitten), also a series of additions and corrections to the earlier part of the work. The letter-press of part 11 is entirely occupied, excepting the key to the genera, by the Introductory Essay upon the Botany of Tasmania and of Australia in general, of 128 pages, which admirable production may claim to be regarded as the most profound and far-reaching discussion of the abstruse theoretical questions bearing upon the origin and distribution of species which has ever been attempted. Although the literary composition bears some marks of haste, the subjectmatter has been elaborated with great care, and in a manner at once bold, independent, and conscientious, opening new views and propounding new problems of the widest interest and, we may add, of the utmost difficulty. The more generally interesting portions of this essay are reproduced in the present volume of this Journal. A. G. 7. Poison of Plants by Arsenic.-It may be recollected that Professor Davy of Dublin last year reported to the Gardener's Chronicle (whence extracts were transferred to our pages*) the results of his experiments which went to show that some plants might with impunity be watered even with a saturated aqueous solution of arsenious acid; that the plants took up this arsenic and accumulated it in their tissues, to such an extent that traces of this metal were discoverable in the bodies of animals fed upon vegetables so treated. These astonishing results naturally excited enquiry. They have now been contradicted in a late number of the Pharmaceutical Journal (as we learn from the Gardener's Chronicle for March 10) by Mr. Ogston, an analytical and agricultural chemist, formerly a pupil of Prof. Graham. Mr. Ögston finds that, on watering the ground around the roots of some vigorous Cabbage plants, some months old, with a saturated solution of arsenious acid, in every trial, after two doses at intervals of three days, the plants died within the week. The same occurred with Scotch Kale, the only other plant subjected to the experiment. On testing the dead plants arsenic was detected only in the portion of the stem close to the roots, and which showed in its darkened color the marks of disease. In no case was any of the poison found in the leaves, or in the stem at more than five inches above the ground. Prof. Davy also startled the English agriculturists and medical jurists by calling attention to the fact that arsenic exists in the commercial superphosphate of lime, at least in certain kinds, coming from the iron pyrites used in the manufacture of the sulphuric acid employed in the production of the superphosphate, which arsenic, if plants may accumulate it in their tissues, would be conveyed *Vol. xxviii, p. 443, 1859. to the flesh of animals fed with turnips manured with such superphos phate, and so conveyed to the human system,-if not in quantity sufficient to poison, yet enough to account for the presence of arsenie in cases of death from supposed poisoning. Mr. Ogston now considers the question as to how much arsenic an agricultural crop (say of turnips) can obtain from an ordinary dressing of the superphosphate so prepared. "Take a very bad sample of pyrites to contain 30 per cent of arsenic, and consider, as is the case, that in the manufacture of oil of vitriol, one-half of this is stopped by condensation in the flues; 15 per cent will remain in relation to the pyrites, or about 10 in relation to the manufactured oil of vitriol. Now suppose the superphosphate made from this acid to contain 20 per cent of it as a constituent, and that 3 cwt. are used as a dressing per acre, there will be added to this acre '07 of a pound of arsenic, and this is to be distributed among from 20 to 25 tons of roots, giving a percentage infinitely small, and in my opinion relieving us from the necessity of the smallest anxiety on the subject. If, however, even this quantity is objectionable, the use of the Belgian pyrites, in which I have never found a trace of arsenic, would obviate all difficulty." A. G. 8. Botanical Necrology for the year 1859.-The following are the principal names upon this obituary record -Some of them we have nained before more briefly. C. A. Agardh, Professor of Botany in the University of Lund, Sweden, from 1812 to 1834, when he became bishop of Carlstad; a voluminous writer upon botanical and other subjects, especially upon Algae, and a distinguished and remarkable man. His earliest publication, a thesis upon the Carices of Scania, was published in the year 1806. He died on the 28th of January, 1859 at the age of 75 years. He was succeeded in his professorship by his son C. A. Agardh, the distinguished algologist. Arthur Henfrey, Professor of Botany in King's College, London. The death, after a short illness, on the 7th of September last, of this amiablə man and excellent vegetable anatomist, at the early age of 39 years, has has already been recorded in this Journal, (vol. 28, p. 443). In his field of research and in his knowledge of the literature of the subject, espècially that of the Germans, he had no rival in Great Britain, and his death is deeply felt. Dr. Thomas Horsfield, born in Pennsylvania, after completing his medical studies in Philadelphia he passed sixteen years in Java and the adjacent islands, in the service of the government, devoting much of his time to botanical and zoological researches; and the long remainder in a responsible position at the India House, in London. A selection only of his botanical collections was published by Mr. Brown and Mr. Bennett, under the title of Planta Javanica Rariores, etc. a most important work. Dr. Horsfield died, on the 14th of July last, in the 86th year of his age. A. L. S. Lejeune, a venerable Belgian botanist, died at Verviers, at the very close of the year 1858, in the 80th year of his age. Thomas Nuttall, born at Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the year 1784, may yet be reckoned as one of our own American botanists, since he came to the United States when only 22 years of SECOND SERIES, VOL. XXIX, No. 87.-MAY, 1860. age, and |