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Common Things Unknown.—In the county of Devonshire the cowslip, nightingale, and misletoe are unknown. The flower which in the county of Somersetshire is called the daffodil, is in Devonshire called the cowslip.—J. A.

Savanilla Rhatany.—All who are devoted to the study of medica will be glad to learn that Mr. Daniel Hanbury has determined the source of the Savanilla rhatany root of commerce to be that of Krameria Ixina Tr. and Pl.

Dr. F. C. Schubeler has recently been nominated Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Garden at Christiana.—Gardener's Chronicle.

New British Lichens.—The Rev. W. A. Leighton announces the discovery by him of two other new British lichens. One of these (Lecidea tantilla Nyl.) he found in October last on wood palings at Stableford, near Bridgenorth, Shropshire; the other (named by Dr. Nylander Odontotrema longius) in January, 1865, on railings near Shrewsbury.—Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.

New Source of Theine.—It has recently been announced that theine, the chemical principle of tea and coffee, has been found in the cola or guru-nut of Soudan (Cola acuminata). "It would probably prove a futile task to attempt the discovery throughout the vegetable kingdom of tropical West Africa of any analogous product that occupies such an exalted position in the social or dietetic economy of the negro tribes, or constitutes such an important article of traffic in Soudan, as the seeds of the cola-tree."—Pharmaceutical Journal.

Another use for Nettles.—There is a use of nettles well-known to the lower class in this neighbourhood, namely, that of feeding pigs. The poor people send out their children with thick gloves on their hands, and a knife and rope; the children then cut down as many nettles as they can carry, round which they tie the rope and trudge home, and boil the nettles, which destroys the power of the formic acid, leaving the nettles quite harmless, but forming a very nutritious food for their pigs.—J. H., Belfast.

British Roses.—M. Deseglise has recently completed a review of the roses of Britain and France in the pages of the "Naturalist." Mr. J. G. Baker (in Seemann's "Journal of Botany") says:—"At length the true Rosa collina Jacq. may take its place upon our British lists. Mr. T. R. A. Briggs has met with it in considerable quantity in hedges and thickets in the neighbourhood of Plymouth, and as the stations are upon both sides of the Tamar, they are consequently both in Devonshire and Cornwall."

Vegetable Origin of Diamonds.—Professor Gœppert, who recently obtained the prize offered by the Dutch Scientific Society for an essay on this subject, says:—"In my essay I have given ample proof that at one time diamonds were soft bodies. . . I have not yet attained any results with respect to graphite, but in diamonds I have found numerous foreign bodies enclosed, of which, if they cannot be said to be evidently and undoubtedly vegetable in their origin, it would, on the other hand, be difficult to deny their vegetable nature altogether.—Seemann's Journal of Botany.

St. Winefrid's Blood.—The blood-speckled stones, at the bottom of St. Winefrid's-well, at Holywell, in Flintshire, were long appealed to as miraculous relics of St. Winefrid's blood, till the prying botanist resolved them into an algoid production, known as Palmella cruenta, which has been frequently taken for blood spilt upon the ground. Thus Caxton quaintly says:—

Servian Flora.—One peculiarity of Servia, Mr. Denton says, will not fail to be noticed by an English traveller. The flora is almost entirely English. The banks skirting the roads which wind through the forests are carpeted with the wild strawberry and the open glades which run into the woods abound with the wild raspberry; the thin soil on the steep sides of many of the hills is covered with the whortleberry; the weeds and wild flowers of the fields also are those which are commonly met with in England; violets and daisies, pansies and spurge, primroses and oxlips, forget-me-nots and speedwells, orchises of all shades, and wild garlic, meadow saffron and the cuckoo flower, or ragged robin. The hedges are powdered with honeysuckle and the clematis, and fringed with yellow broom, with bramble bushes, dog roses, and the white and blackthorn. Trees, indeed, that are comparatively rare in England are met with in profusion in Servia. The wild pear and cherry, the plum, and the apple, may be seen in great numbers in the woods; the acacia and laburnum are met with by the sides of the roads, and lilacs abound on all the hill sides.—Quarterly Review.

Abnormal Larch Cones.—As a field-naturalist I have ever been fond of a ramble in the larch plantation. In winter the ground beneath is strewn