Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/176

 lo8 PllOCEKDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

by swarms of insects, -which certainly assist the fiuclification. Among the other researches noticed were Oersted's paper on Bldens plalycepha ; Warming, on the spiral arrangement of the leaves of (JucurbitacecB, and on Scopiola atropoidt'S and other Solanacere ; Laiige's addition to his ' Handbook of the Danish Flora,' Didriclisen's ' History of Daiii;~h Botany,' and Warming's ' Inaugural Thesis on the Inflorescence or Deve- lopment of Enphorhia.'' The review concluded with some account of recent Danish excursions to Iceland and Greenland, and the results derived therefrom. — " On the Phyllotaxis of Lepldodendron." By Prof. Alexander Dickson. (This will be printed in e.xlemo next month.) — " On Li'ium canadense, L., var. puberutum, Toir. By Dr. Eobert Brown. In the enumeration of Dr. Bigelow's C;ilifornian collections in the fourth volume of the ' Pacitic Eailroad Surveys ' (Bot. p. 146), Professor Torrey notes a variety of LUium canadense, distinguished by its stem and peduncles being minutely pubescent, the leaves broadly lanceolate, with the margin and nerves pubenilous, the flowers (2-7) largely pedunculated, the sepals markedly reflexed and purple-spotted within. In the course of examining his own and the late Mr. Jeffrey's collection, Dr. Brown had found specimens which corre- sponded to Torrey's description, but the characters are by no means constant, nor are all fouud on or.e plant. In specimens of Lilium cana- dense, gathered in Canada, the leaves were found quite as broad as any from North-West America, and in numerous specimens of Lilium cana- dense frum Oregon, California, and British Columbia, the leaves were almost linear-lanceolate. The pubescence is not a constant character; for while it was found on young plants, it was absent from old, nor was constant in either ; most probably it is caducous. The result of this is, that in all likelihood there is only one form of Liliion canadense found over the whole North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that any varieties are merely local, and the result of habitat, age or other cir- cumstances, which do not give the characters derivetl tiierefrom any kind of speciiic value.—" Report on the Open Air Vegetation at the Eoyal Botanical Garden." By Mr. M'Nab.

LiTt-RARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIE'IY OF MANCHESTER.

Feb. 21ili, 1871. — Joseph Baxendale, Esq., President of the Section, in the chair. " Notes on Polygonum minus and its allies," by G. E. Hunt, In reference to the discussion at this Society in November last (see p. 30), as to the claims of Polygonum mite, Schrank, to rank as a native of Cheshire, in support of which it was stated that "so long ago as 1828, Mr. W. Wilson, of Warrington, sent the plant from a Cheshire locality under the erroneous name of P. minus to the late Sir W. J. Hooker, in whose herbarium at Kew the specimens still are," — Mr. Hunt stated that, through the kindness of Mr. Baker, of Kew, he had been since furnished with the perianths and fruit of the original specimen referred to above, and had compared them carefully with P. minus and miie from various stations both in Britain and from the Continent. The comparison quite satisfied him that the Kew specimen from Cheshire could not be asso- ciated with P. mite, but was correctly referred by Mr. Wilson to P. minus, Huds. Specimens were sent to Mr. Baker for his opinion, and his reply was as follows, in a letter dated 31st January, 1871 : — " I believe, now that I have laid the nuts side by side, and compared them carefully, that you are quite right about t\\e'Polygouiim." 1 may further add that all the

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