Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/211

 PKOCEEDINGS OF SOCIICTIES. 189

who has made several coininunications to me on the subject, states that the fronds of //. tunbruUjt)ise die aunuallv, while those of II. Wdsoril grow on from year to year. This I can confirm by observations on their firowth in my own fernery. In the extract I have given it is stated that //. Boryaniim is scarcely distinguishable from It. uuilaterale. The vena- tion of this little Fern is similar to that of H. tiinbridr/oise, but differs in the hairy underneath part of the frond, and in the branched hairs at the margins. The involucres are orbicular, ciliated, and sunk in the frond. I have had much correspondence with my friend Mr. Wilson regarding the interest of the species that he has described ; and from my extensive examinations of those Ferns in all seasons and localities in this country, I am more than ever confirmed in the truly distinctive characters of //. TFUso)ii, and that no British nor foreign botanist had ever before described it. This leads me to observe on the subject of discovery, thai Ur. Graves, it would appear, first found and noticed //. JF'dsoni, but did not even guess that there were two species existing in Britain. There- fore to Mr. Wilson, who distinguished and described the plant, is emi- nently and justly due the discovery.

Dublin Scientific Club, March G(h. — Dr. R. Macdonnell, F.R.S., who was in the chair, communicated some observations " On the Colours of Flowers Grown in Darkness." He grew Hyacinths of the three pri- mary colours in a perfectly dark cellar. The green leaves were com- pletely etiolated, while the flowers of the red variety were quite white, those of the yellow practically so, but the violet-blue were unaffected.

Royal Dublin Society, March 20th. — Professor Ball in the chair. Dr. Moore, Director of the Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, made a commu- nication relative to the loss of the fine plant of Pandauns id'dis, Bory, which had until recently been one of the most conspicuous ornaments of the palm-house. Dr. Moore had personally had the plant under his care for thirty-three years, and it was certainly not less than twenty years old when he first knew it. It was about twenty-five feet in height, and had reached a size at which its flowering might be looked forward to with some certainty. All such hopes were, however, frustrated by the fungoid disease to which the plant eventually succumbed. This first showed its effects in the stem immediately beneath one of the crowns, destroying the rigidity and cohesion of the tissues, so that the crown drooped downwards. The crown was removed, and an attempt made to propagate it, but the external symptoms of dis(!ase which the plant exiiil)ite(l were only too evidently the final result of the not inunediately apparent internal ravages of a mycelium, and the crown, like the rest of the plant, was already doomed. Successive portions of the difl'erent axes were amputated, but .without, in any way, averting the mischief. Dr. Moore stated that the fungus was identical with that which had destroyed the Pandauns odora- Imim/ts, Jaccp, in the gardens at Breslau, and of which there was an account in Coim's ' Beitriige ' by Dr. Schrceter. The diseased parts of the plant exhibited several fungoid forms, which there was good reason to believe were polymorphic stites of the same plant ; of these Melaiicoruiini Pandaui, Lev., and Neclria Pandani, Tul., had been described.* Dr. Moore stated that there was no reason to attribute the death of the

for January 26, 1871, p. 243.
 * An abstract of Dr. Schronter'a paper by Mr. Carrey is contained in ' Nature '

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