Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/83

1, 1865.]

.—Mr. James Britten is collecting notes for a Flora of Buckinghamshire. Any communications relative to the plants of this county may be addressed to 18, Shawfield-street, Chelsea, S.W.

. (In reply to A. B.)—The dose of recently prepared powder is from one to three drachms—of oil, or ethereal extract, from half a drachm to a drachm, in the form of electuary, emulsion, or pills.—Pereira's Materia Medica. It is not our province to give prescriptions. We believe that the green fronds are used for packing.

.—The first part of Dr. B. Seemann's "Flora Vitiensis," or Flora of the Fiji Islands, has just appeared.

.—In March, 1842, I took from the tiled roof of an outbuilding, at Malvern Wells, a tuft of Bryum capillare, a moss very common on walls and rocks. This tuft, with the black soil collected at its base, weighed six ounces, and on carefully extracting the mould by repeated washings, the actual vegetation that remained did not amount in weight to one ounce; the moss having thus, on a bare surface of tile, upon which it had been cast by wind or rain, not only subsisted itself, but amassed by its retentive qualities, a rich humus, above five times its own weight.—Edwin Lees' Botanical Look-out.

.—I quote the following from the current number of a Lincolnshire paper:—"Nearly all the favourite flowers in England are exotics: the honeysuckle and hawthorn are from America; the daffodil, from Italy; the foxglove, from the Canaries; asparagus, from Asia; the gooseberry, from Flanders; and the raspberry, from America; the hop-plant came from the Netherlands." Seeing that the hawthorn and honeysuckle are both mentioned by Chaucer, who died in 1400, and that the discovery of America by Columbus dates 1492, we must either suppose that the father of English poetry had a marvellous insight into the future, or that the editor of the newspaper has fallen into error. The other statements do not require comment.—B.

.—Will you inform me what is among botanists understood to be the function of the so-called gemmæ of Tetraphis pellucida and Aulacomnion androgynum? Few will have long followed the search for and examination of mosses without meeting with these interesting species. The beautiful golden baskets filled with bright green apples, that at this season ornament the one, and the bunches of pears that, grouped together on a slender stem, adorn the other, are, under a microscope with a low power, among the prettiest of vegetable things. Are these apples and pears of the nature of seeds, spores, off-sets, or really buds? for, surely, they are not, as some have suggested, only rudimentary leaves.—C. F. W. [They are generally regarded as reproductive buds, analogous to the bulbels of some flowering plants; their function being, within certain limits, the perpetuation of the species. In Tetraphis pellucida they arise from the centre of abortive female flowers. Of a similar character are the threads produced on the leaves of some species of Orthotrichum and the granules of Pottia cavifolia.—''Ed. S. G.'']

.—If we take a stroll away from the busy haunts of men, though only for a short distance,—say, for example (if from London), down to New Cross,—and along the slopes of the railway-cutting, we shall be sure to find the plant called the goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis) in profusion. In May or June the leaves and unopened involucres of this plant will present a singular appearance, as if sprinkled with gold-dust, or rather, being deficient in lustre, seeming as though some fairy folk had scattered over them a shower of orange-coloured chrome or turmeric powder. Examine this singular phenomenon more closely, and the poetry about the pixies all vanishes; for the orange powder will be seen to have issued from the plant itself. A pocket-lens, or a Coddington, reveals the secret of the mysterious dust. Hundreds of small orifices, like little yellow cups, with a fringe of white teeth around their margins, will be seen thickly scattered over the under-surface of the leaves. These cups (called peridia) will appear to have burst through the epidermis of the leaf and elevated themselves above its surface, with the lower portion attached to the substratum beneath. In the interior of these cup-like excrescences, or peridia, a quantity of the orange-coloured, sphaerical dust remains, whilst much of it has been shed and dispersed over the unoccupied portions of the leaves, the stems, and probably on the leaves of the grass or other plants growing in its immediate vicinity. These little cups are fungi, the yellow dust the spores or ultimate representatives of seed.—Rust, Smut, Mildew, and Mould.

(P. grandiflora).—What prompts me to write a brief description of this remarkable little plant is the feeling that it is, probably, not very well known to most of my readers. On account of its local habitats, I was at first under the impression that it grew only in the bogs of the south of Ireland, where I have seen it flourish in great luxuriance. I noticed it later in the Gap of Dunloe, near the Lakes of Killarney. And I find by personal observation that it attains almost as fine a growth on some of the mountain-side morasses of Wales, especially in the district of the lead mines in Radnorshire and Cardiganshire. It always inhabits boggy or peaty soils that have a constant supply of moisture. When walking in any of its habitats, a flat circular tuft of glossy light yellow leaves is sure to meet the eye even of a very careless observer. It has a small fibrous root, which does not penetrate far into the soil. It flowers about the beginning of summer. At this season there spring from the centre of the tuft six or seven slender upright stalks, varying from two to three inches in height. These support flowers, in shape much like the common garden nasturtium, but about the size of a large violet, and of a rich purple colour. The leaves, which are very juicy, are said by the peasants to be poisonous to sheep. The Pinguicula derives its name, probably, from the Latin adjective pinguis, fat, ula being a diminutive termination, on account of its succulent leaves. It is called grandiflora, to distinguish it from another and smaller pinguicula, which bears pale pink flowers. I have tried several means of keeping the plant alive, by transporting with it a quantity of its native soil, and by giving it a continual supply of moisture; but this and every other plan of mine has failed, yet I have not given up all hopes of preserving it away from its native marshes.