Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/127

 SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. Ill

Pliny mentions their employment for besoms among the Eomaus, and Browne in his ' Britannia's Pastorals ' says, —

" Amongst the rest the Tamarisk there stood, For housewives' besoms onely knowne most good."

J. R. Jackson.

��Plants of Co. Cork. — Brosera anyllca. — I found this sparingly in a new station, Bluefort Bog, Newmarket, in the north-west of the county, in the summer of 1870. The ' Cybele' states it as hitherto only recorded from the west ; indeed, apparently only from a point so far west as Berehaven. On the same bog very sparingly grew Carex Umosa, not yet recorded from this county. Ranunculus heterophyllus, Bab., for which only a few stations in tlie extreme north of Ireland are given in the Cybele Hib., is not uncommon in this neighbourhood. I gathered it abundantly last summer. TrifoHnni scahrum is stated to be very rare, and to occur only in one or two of our midland connties. (See Cyb. Hib.) Two or three years since I found it growing abundantly on sand-hills near Youghal, in this county. — T. Allin.

��Chlorophyll prodfced without Influence of Light (p. 1.5). — The production of clilorophyll in plant-tissues removed from the influence of light h;>8 not escaped the attention of physiologists. Sachs has discussed the matter (see Micheli's translation of his 'Physiologic Vegetale') ; al- though he considers that the virescence of the embryos of many plants is not really a case in point, since "the light penetrates through the walls of the carpel and the testa of the seed with sufficient energy to produce this result." He has, however, found that the embryos of Pinus Pinea, P. canadensis, P. Strobus, Thuja orientaUs become green even when every precaution is taken to keep them in obscurity, and that this is also the case with the fronds of Adiantnm CapUlus-Veneris^ Poly podium vulgare, Jspidiuni spinulosum, Scolopendrinm officinale, Pteris chnjsocarpa. He thinks that in cases like these there may be a substance capable of acting on the protoplasm with the same effect as light. He finds reason for thinking this Hkely, from the production of a green colour when etiolated chlorophyll is heated with fuming sulphuric acid. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer.

��Economic Applications of Cyperus longus, Z. — In Ansted's 'Channel Islands,' p. 517, it is stated that the material named Han " is derived from the fibre of the Cyperus lonyus, manufactured like hemp. It is used instead of rope for many purposes, and is preferred to hemp, inas- much as it does not readily harden, or become coated with slimy weed, when exposed to the action of salt water. Mats, footstools, saddles, horse-collars, shackles for cattle, etc., are made from it, as well as boat- rope, and rope for various fishing purposes." On page 180, the manu- facture is spoken of as confined to Guernsey; and when in the island last year I made inquiries about it, but without much success. After some search I heard that native-made saddles and mats were occasionally brought into S. Peter Port from the distant parts of the island. I secured one of the saddles, which is a packsaddle used for bringing up the vi-aic or wrack from the shore. It is now in the Economic Museum of

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