The Scientific Notebooks of German Orchidologist Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Kränzlin

MARCH 11, 1882.] THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 341

winter, and the plants are now producing their flowers in great abundance. The Anemone represents a group of most useful spring flowering plants, commencing with the scarlet A. fulgens, and follwoing on the Apennina, the varieties of Hepatica, stellata, cornonaria, sylvestris, and the varieties of A. nemorosa. All of them do well in the open ground, and when they become firmly established flourish with freedom and do a rare service in the garden.

— CLASSIFICATION OF POTATOS.—In the Revue Horticole is given an abstract of M. HENRY VILMORIN'S classification of Potatos. The main groups are five—yellow, rose, red, violet, and variegated. Each of these five main groups is subdivided according as the tubers are round, elongated, flattened, smooth, or notched. Further points of distinction are to be sought in the eyes, which are violet, yellow, rose, or white, and in the colour of the flowers—grey, lilac, white.

— CAMELLIAS AND HYACINTHS.—On Wednesday Messrs. WILLIAM PAUL & SON, of Waltham Cross, opened an extensive and very interesting exhibition of Camellias and Hyacinths, &c., in the Royal Botanic Society's Garden, Regent's Park. Intending visitors should make a point of going early in the ensuing week.

— SEEDLING POTATOS.—The judging of seedling Potatos by the International Committee at the Exhibition of September 20 and 21 is intended to be as thorough and comprehensive as possible. Raisers of seedlings will find the terms stated in the schedule under classes P, Q, R, S, but it may prevent mistakes and disappointments if we at once endeavour to state the case clearly. An intending exhibitor must at once forward "a sufficient number of tubers of each variety" to Mr. BARRON, Royal Horticultural Gardens, Chiswick, and a memorandum on the subject to the Secretary of the International Potato Exhibition, 23, Upper Thames Street. The judges will require to have before them on September 20 a dish of nine samples of each competing seedling, and an extra parcel of six for cooking, and as a matter of course these should not be exposed to the light in any way, The judges will act on the report as to cropping, on the report as to tasting, and on the appearance of the exhibition samples. The object of all this trouble is, of course, to render the final decisions as much as possible beyond question, and of real public importance.

— THE WEATHER.—General remarks on the temperature, rainfall, and duration of bright sunshine, for agricultural and sanitary purposes, during the week ending March 6, issued by the Meteorological Office, London:—The weather has been very unsettled and dull, with rather heavy rain in the south, and rain, snow, or sleet in the north. The temperature, though lower than during last week, has still been above the mean in England and Ireland, but in Scotland it was slightly below. The thermometer was generally highest on the 5th or 6th, the maxima ranging from 51[degrees] in "Scotland, W." to 55[degrees] at some of our southwestern stations, and 57[degrees] at Hereford. The minima were lower than of late, and varied from 27[degrees] in the "Midland Counties" to 35[degrees] in "Ireland, S." The rainfall has been more than the mean in all districts, the excess in the west and north-west being rather large. Bright sunshine shows a decrease in the extreme north-east but an increase elsewhere. The percentage was greatest (38) in "England, S.," and least (11) in "England, N.W." Depressions observed:—At the commencement of the period the barometer was rising in all parts of our area, with moderate southerly or south-westerly winds; but by 8 A.M. on March 1 the mercury had fallen rapidly, and an irregularly-shaped area of low pressure, around which were steep gradients, was shown over England and Ireland. This disturbance caused at first strong easterly winds or gales in the north, and fresh or strong westerly gales in the south; but as it slowly filled up the force of the wind gradually abated, and by the evening of the 3d had become very light from the east on all our coasts. From the 4th until the close of the period the barometer was highest in the southern part of our area, while depressions travelled in an easterly direction across our northern coasts, giving us south-westerly to north-westerly winds, which occasionally increased to a strong breeze or fresh gale.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH ORCHIDS OUT OF FLOWER* IN the Gardeners' Chronicle, n.s., xiv. p. 750, there is a translation of an analytical key to the vegetative characters of various Orchids and groups of Orchids, originally published by Dr. Pfitzer in the Verhandlungen des Naturhist.-Med. Vereins zu Heidelberg; and in an introductory note thereto most of the technical terms there and here employed are explained. What is there set forth in a tabular form is elaborated and illustrated by additional examples in the book before us. Ignoring altogether the floral characters, Dr. Pfitzer attempts to construct a comparative classification or subordination of Orchids from the characters afforded by their vegetative

[black and white illustration]] W.G.S. FIG. 51.—AERIDES SCHRŒDERI. An example of a monopodial Orchid, in which the main stem continues to grow at the point, the inflorescence shoots being given off at the sides from the axil of the leaves.

organs—that is to say, their stems, leaves, and inflorescences; but partly in consequence of teh great value of living plants of many species, partly in consequence of many species and genera being only known from portions of plants preserved in herbaria, this classification, as the author acknowledges, though embracing all the tribes of the order, is fragmentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, it may serve as a basis for further researches in the same branch of knowledge, and the author has done well to publish the results of his labours at once, instead of delaying it until he could fill up the gaps. At the same time, it is disappointing to find that this massive quarto volume contains nothing nearer finality in the classifi- [classification]

*Grundsüge einer vergleichenden Morphologie der Orchideen (Outlines of a Comparative Morphology [of the Vegetative Organs] of the Orchideæ). Von Dr. Ernst Pfitzer, O. Professor der Botanik an der Universität Heidelberg. 4to, pp. 194. with one coloured and three uncoloured plates and thirty-five woodcuts. Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1882.

[classification] cation of Orchids according to their vegetative characters than does the abstract referred above. It might have been expected that the author would exhaustively examine the results obtained, and have indicated how far they might be used in conjunction with the characters of the floral organs in a systematic classificatin of the order; but he has not done so. Neither has he attempted the classification of all the species of a single large genus. What he has done is to study a number of species of barious genera—as many, it may be presumed, as offered sufficient materials—and to construct a framework of a classification from their vegetative characters. It is not clear whe value the author himself attaches to his work, or how far he anticipates that characters of the vegetative organs can be utilised in a systematic classification. At p. 7

he mentions that Mr. Bentham, in his essay on the tribes of the Orchideæ,* makes no use of the abstract published in this journal and elsewhere, from which it might be inferred that he considers use might have been made of it. At p. 8 he distinctly states that he would not think of classifying Orchids by their habit alone; yet he does not say how far he would go. We are left to determine how far this is feasible as best we may from the body of work.

With regard to the genera Bletilla, Preptanthe, and the relationship of Phaius, Calanthe, and Limodorum, alluded to at p. 4 as instances of Orchids closely allied in vegetative characters, and even in their floral characters, except the pollinia, it may be mentioned that Blume and Bentham have stated that Bletilla and Preptanthe were separated from Bletia and Calanthe respectively, owing to a mistaken view as to the nature of their pollen. And Mr. Bentham would

*Journal of the Linnean Society, xviii, pp. 281—360.