the unexpected discovery, by Mr. Jackson Dawson, of a patch of Heath in Tewksbury, Massachusetts; adding the remark, that: "It may have been introduced, unlikely as it seems; or we may have to rank this Heath with Scolopendrium officinarum, Subularia aquatica, and Marsilea quadrifolia, as species of the Old World so sparingly represented in the New, that they are known only at single stations,-perhaps latelingerers rather than new-comers." And when, in a subsequent volume of this Journal, Mr. Rand, after exploring the locality, gave a detailed account of the case, and of the probabilities that the plant might be truly native, we added a note to say that the probability very much depended upon the confirmation of the Newfoundland habitat. As to that, we had been verbally informed, in January, 1839, by the late David Don, that he possessed specimens of Calluna collected in Newfoundland by an explorer of that island. Our friend Mr. C. J. Sprague, however, after having in vain endeavored to find in any publication of Pylaie's any mention of this Heath in Newfoundland, and having ascertained that no specimen was extant in Pylaie's herbarium, or elsewhere that he could trace, naturally took a skeptical view, and in the Proceedings of the Boston Natural History Society for February and for May, 1862, he argued plausibly, from negative evidence, against the idea that any native Heath had ever been found in Newfoundland or on the American continent. It is with much interest, therefore, that we read the announcement by Dr. Hewett C. Watson (in the Natural History Review for April last), that 66 Specimens of Calluna vulgaris from Newfoundland have very recently come into my hands, under circumstances which seem to warrant its reception henceforth as a true native of that island. At the late sale of the Linnæan Society's Collections in London, in November, 1863, I bought a parcel of specimens, which was endorsed outside, “A collection of dried plants from Newfoundland, collected by -McCormack, Esq., and presented to Mr. David Don." The specimens were old, and greatly damaged by insects. Apparently, they had been left in the rough, as originally received from the collector; being in mingled layers between a scanty supply of paper, and almost all of them unlabelled. Among these specimens were two flowerless branches of the true Calluna vulgaris, about six inches long, quite identical with the common heath of our British moors. Fortunately, a label did accompany these two specimens, which runs thus:-"Head of St. Mary's Bay-Trepassey Bay, also very abundant.-S.E. of Newfoundland considerable tracts of it." The name "Erica vulgaris" has been added on the label in a different handwriting. All the other species in the parcel (or nearly all) have been recorded from Newfoundland, so that there appeared no cause for doubt respecting the Calluna itself. And, moreover, the Collector had seemingly some idea that an especial interest would attach to the Calluna, since in this instance he gave its special locality, and also added two other localities on the label. But there is very likely some mistake in the name of the donor to Mr. Don. It is believed by Sir William Hooker that he was the same Mr. W. E. Cormack, whose name is frequently cited for Newfoundland plants in the "Flora Boreali-Americana." This gentleman was a merchant in Newfoundland, to which he made several voyages, We should recollect that the Calluna advances to the extreme western limits (or out-liers) of Europe, in Iceland, Ireland, and the Azores. The step thence to Newfoundland and Massachusetts, though wide, is not an incredible one." Without doubt these are the very specimens referred to by Mr. Don, then curator of the Linnean Society. And now that the stations where 'they were collected are made known, we may expect that the plant will soon be rediscovered, and its indigenous character ascertained. We notice that an earlier announcement of Dr. Watson's discovery is contained in Dr. Seemann's Journal of Botany for February last, where the record of Gisecke's discovery of Calluna in Greenland is referred to. In view of this, and of its common occurrence in Ireland, Iceland, and the Azores, Dr. Seemann opines that "its extension to Newfoundland and the American continent is therefore not so much a paradox as a fact at which we might almost have arrived by induction." It seems to us that the induction was all the other way until the plant was actually discovered on American soil. A. G. 2. Lessons in Elementary Botany: The part on Systematic Botany based upon material left in manuscript by the late Professor Henslow; with numerous illustrations; by DANIEL OLIVER, F.R.S., F.L.S., Keeper of the Herbarium and Library of the Royal Gardens, Kew, and Professor of Botany in University College, London. London and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co., 1864. pp. 317, 24mo.-As a simple introduction to Botany for beginners, this little volume, which has just reached our hands, appears to be almost unrivalled. It is very simple, but truly scientific, and written with a clearness which shows Professor Oliver to be a master of exposition. The elements of Structural and Physiological Botany are presented in eight chapters, occupying a little more than a third part of the book, not in strict systematic order, but in a series of lessons upon familiar plants, beginning with a Buttercup. Three short and easy lessons are devoted to the Buttercup, upon which all the organs of a flowering plant and their functions are compendiously taught. The fourth lesson introduces "Common flowers to compare with Buttercup," viz: Wallflower, Pea, Bramble, Apple or Pear, Cow Parsnip or Carrot, Daisy, Dead-Nettle, Primrose, Stinging Nettle; bringing out clearly the general morphology of the flower, and the characters of the great exogenous or dicotyledonous class. The fifth deals with Arum, Spotted Orchis, Daffodil, Tulip, and Wheat; bringing out the characters of the monocotyledonous class. The sixth introduces the use of "Flower-schedules," upon a plan devised and successfully employed by the late Professor Henslow; a good mode of directing attention to the more important points in the structure of flowers, and of training young pupils to precise observation. The seventh lesson sketches the development and morphology of the organs, from root to seed, in regular order. The eighth is devoted to the anatomy, or "the minute structure and vital processes of plants." The second part, on "The Classification of Plants," after a few well-chosen remarks on the plan and nature of classification and binomial nomenclature, illustrates by means of common types the natural orders of British plants, their sensible properties and common uses. And finally, an appendix explains how to dry plants, and, by a set of examples, how to describe them in botanical language. No one would have thought that so much thoroughly correct botany could have been so simply and happily taught in so small a volume. A. G. 3. Radicle-ism. That the stem or ascending axis in Phænogamous and the higher Cryptogamous plants is composed of a series of similar parts, viz: of nodes or leaf-bearing points separated by internodes, each internode developed from the summit or node of its predecessor, is the fundamental doctrine in structural botany. That the embryo (with undeveloped plumule) is simply the initial term of the series; that its socalled radicle is not root, but answers to internode, just as the cotyledons borne on its summit answer to leaves, are propositions which we suppose are generally accepted on the continent of Europe, as they certainly are by the botanists of this country. Simple, clear, and indubitable as this view appears to us, our endeavors to impress it upon English botanists, although likely to succeed in the end, make slow progress. Some of these endeavors, or protests, are recorded in this Journal, e. gr., in the nos. for Nov., 1857, p. 435; in Nov., 1858, p. 416; in July, 1861, p. 126; in Sept., 1863, p. 291; and finally in Nov., 1863, p. 435. In the article last referred to, we noted what we took for an admission decisive of the question, viz: that "the radicle is rightly regarded as an axis and not a root." The word 'axis,' as here used in contradistinction to 'root,' we understood to mean ascending axis or stem. We were hasty, it appears; and our mistake arose from our not considering a third possible alternative, i. e., that the radicle might be neither root nor stem, but a tertium quid. This very view is now propounded by Prof. Oliver, in the Natural History Review for April last (p. 314), in an article which, replying as it does to our criticism, may be presumed to express the opinion of Dr. Hooker also. Propounded by such authorities, the view is entitled to the most attentive consideration. Upon it we remark, first, that, as it introduces a new element into the structural composition of the plant, the burden of proof rests upon the propounders. In what we supposed to be the accepted view, we have the plant built up by the successive repetition of homologous parts, of superposed joints of stem, each bearing a leaf or leaves at its superior extremity, and each capable of sending out a root or roots, actually producing them under favorable circumstances, preferentially at the lower extremity. It being conceded that the radicle of the embryo is not root, but that from the base of which the primary root is produced, while its other end is a leaf-bearing node, the inference is natural that it is the primordial internode, the initial joint of stem. Such inference must be rebutted by evidence, by showing, for instance, that the radicle has not the structure or the behavior of an internode. Prof. Oliver supports his denial of our proposition, that the radicle answers to an internode of the ascending axis, by two arguments, one of which is stated in extenso, but may be shortly expressed, and as shortly answered. It is, that an internode, being in terms the part between two nodes, and there being a node only at the upper end of the radicle, none at the lower, therefore the radicle cannot be an internode! This is literally true. The series of nodes and internodes-not being infinite, nor in a circle like the old Egyptian symbol of a serpent with its tail in its mouth-must needs be gin with the one or the other; and in our view it begins with internode, i. e. with axis itself, and not with leaf-bearing apex of axis. But if the name here really confuses any one's ideas as to the thing, let us substitute for internode, Gaudichaud's original technical term of merithallus or merithalle, and so have done with this verbal argument. The other argument, to prove that the radicle is a tertium quid, is, that in some respects the behavior of the axis below the cotyledonar node is dissimilar to that above, "apart, of course, from the circumstance that the one develops a succession of leaves, the other a root." But the radicle bears the cotyledons, and therefore begins this very succession of leaves, is to the cotyledons and the plumule just what the next merithalle is to its leaf or leaves and the terminal bud; and any of these merithalles, if under ground, will be pretty sure to produce roots;would produce a root directly from their lower end, no doubt, were that not impossible under the circumstances. What the other dissimilarities are is not suggested. Perhaps Dr. Hooker has alluded to them in his admirable Memoir on Welwitschia (p. 17), in his references to the papers of Clos in the Ann. Sci. Nat., on the collet and on rhizotaxie. Upon which it may suffice to remark, that, whatever minor discrepancies there may be between the number and disposition of the vascular bundles in the axis above and below the cotyledons, they seem capable of easy explanation; and that we should refer to those very figures by Clos, in Ann. Sci. Nat., 3, 18. t. 16 and 17, and to the original subjects which can so readily be examined, as evidence that the radicle, as to internal structure, is stem. Upon this very ground of internal structure; upon its mode of increase in length (elongating throughout, and often, as in Cucurbitaceae, in Beans, &c., continuing to elongate in its upper portion long after the portion toward the root has ceased to lengthen); indeed, upon its whole behavior (lengthening in some cases, remaining undeveloped in others); upon what it bears; and upon every comparison which we have yet been able to make, we are bound still to maintain that the radicle is not a tertium quid, but is "to be regarded as part of the stem or ascending axis, in the same sense as the other internodes of the plant may be so regarded." If an opposite view is tenable, we crave an explicit statement of the grounds upon which it is maintained. A. G. 4. Göthe's Essay on the Metamorphosis of Plants, translated into English by Emily M. Cox, is published in Dr. Seemann's Journal of Botany, for November and December last. The translation is augmented by some explanatory foot-notes by Dr. Masters, which will aid the general reader to a correct understanding of this celebrated essay. It would be well to translate and reprint Wolff's Theoria Generationis also. A. G. 5. Equisetum.-In the same useful Journal (for November, 1863,) is a translation of a paper by Dr. Milde, On the Geographical Distribution of the Equisetacea. In the summary it appears that At present only 26 pieces of Equisetum can be distinguished with certainty, viz: ten E. PHANEROPORA, E. arvense L., E. Braunii Milde, E. Telmateia Ehr., E. sylvaticum L., E. diffusum Don, E. Bogotense H. & Bonpl., E. palustre L., E. limosum L., and E. littorale Kühler); and sixteen E. CRYPTOPORA, (E. Martii Milde, E. xylochatum Metten., E. Brasiliense Milde, E. Schaffneri Milde, E. giganteum L., E. myriochatum Schlecht. & Cham., E. debile Roxb., E. Mexicanum Milde, E. elongatum Willd., E. robustum A. Braun, E. lævigatum A. Braun, E. hiemale L., E. Schleicheri Milde, E. trachyodon A. Braun, E. variegatum Schleich., and E. scirpoides Michx. It appears that Dr. Seemann has an additional species from the Feejee Islands. E. elongatum is the most widely dispersed species, viz: in Europe to lat. 51°, N. Asia, North and South Africa, Mexico, and Chili. Europe with thirteen species does not possess a single peculiar one, strictly speaking, E. littorale being a hybrid, and E. Schleicheri and E. trachyodon being regarded as only subspecies. America contains the greatest number of species (21), and those of South America are the most peculiar. E. xylochatum of Peru, and E. Brasiliense of Brazil, have the stem 10 feet high and an inch in diameter; while E. Martii, found in both these countries, is still more gigantic. E. myriochatum, one of the five known Mexican species is likewise gigantic. Northern N. America has nearly all the European species, viz: arvense, pratense (Labrador), sylvaticum, palustre, limosum, hiemale, variegatum, and scirpoides; likewise the striking E. Telmateia about the northern Great Lakes; also the Californian species confounded with the latter, E. Braunii Milde, and A. Braun's robustum and lævigatum, the former extending into Mexico. A. G. 6. A. Braun on Marsilia and Pilularia.-As a precursor to an extended monograph, Prof. Braun has brought out, in the Proceedings of the Berlin Academy, in 1863, a full list and arrangement of the species of Marsilia (as he, with evident correctness, writes the name). He recognizes 37 species, seven of them, however, perhaps to be merged in others. As to geographical distribution, 4 are found in Europe, Northern Africa and Asia, 6 in Southern Asia, 12 in Central and Southern Africa and the islands adjacent, 9 in North and South America-one of which is common to both North America and Europe,--5 in Australia, and 4 in the South Sea Islands-only two of which, however, are peculiar to them. The species enumerated from North America, including Mexico, are as follows, under their respective sections. A. Fruits 8 to 20, placed on recurved peduncles in a single row far up the petiole, from the outer edge of which they spring, globose, without teeth. M. polycarpa, Hook. & Grev. Mexico and southward. B. Fruits 2 to 6, mostly 2 (exceptionally 1), seated on a little above the base of the petiole, more or less compressed, mostly oblong, with two teeth. (Peduncles erect, confluent for some distance, sometimes more than half way up.) M. quadrifolia, L. Connecticut, at only one known locality, where it was discovered by Dr. T. F. Allen. (Temperate Europe and Asia.) M. macropus, Engelm. (non Hook.) Texas. C. Fruit solitary at the base with or without teeth. M. uncinata, A. Braun. of each petiole, more or less compressed, |