BOTANICAL NEWS. 95
to be a very rare arrangement, viz. a -f^ spiral, a member of a series whose terms would run ns follows, i, |-, —, ~, ■^\, etc., these fractions representing the values of the successive convergents in tlie continued fi-action —
1 4+1 2 + 1 1+j^ 1+ . . .
— Professor Dickie presented specimens of Iil/OfJi/moiin pahnatn found growing on an iron chain submerged for five months in six fathoms in the Bay of Nigg, near Aberdeen, also specimens of P&lyujylionin Erodicei found growing on a piece of hempen rope nttached to the same chain. — Mr. Sadler presented specimens of TJlva cr'ispa, and recorded its occur- rence in great profusion at the foot of a wall leading to Warriston Ceme- tei-y, Edinburgh.
��lofamcal Jtctos.
��The Trustees of the Britisli Museum have appointed Mr. William Carruthers to be Keeper of the Botanical Department in the place of Mr. J. J. Bennett, who recently retired. None of the readers of this Journal require to be informed of the very valuable additions to onr knowledge of plant structure which have been made by Mr. Carruthers ; many of his researches on fossil plants have been first published in our pages, and the yearly indexes show other important contributions from his pen. With the prospect of increased accommodation in the new Natural History Museum, abundance of opportunity for developing the great resources of the department will be afforded to ]\Ir. Carruthers and his assistants.
Mr. Baker has commenced in the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' a synopsis of the genus Lilium. He separates as a subgenus {Notholirion) the Hima- layan L. roseum ; and under the name L. Ilookeri describes another species of the same subgenus from Sikkim.
Under the title ' Bristol Pharmacology,' Mr. Stoddart, of Bristol, is publishing in the ' Pharmaceutical Journal ' a series of very interesting notes on the medicinal native plants growing round that city, which are very well worth perusal by students of our flora.
Dr. Asa Gray has recently given us a reconstruction of the Order Dia- pensiacece. He associates with Biapensia and Pyxidanthera in this small Order Shortia and Galax, which have been referred to various natural fami- lies. We are also indebted to him for an excellent revision of the Polemo- niacers of N. America, of which he describes 10 'J species under four genera.
'The Year-Book of Pharmacy for 1870, with the Proceedings of the British Pharmaceutical Conference ' held at Liverpool last year, has reached us. It forms a volume of some GOO pages, filled with a very niiscellaneous assemblage of papers and notes on all subjects connected with the materia medica in its largest sense, both British and foreign, and will be found worthy of perusal by botanists as well as pharma-
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