Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/364

 336 TEMPERATURE OF FUNGI.

Pruit of Vinca. — The following passage from Blair's 'Botanical Essays' (1720), pp. 10, 11, is a sort of answer to Mr. Grindon's qiieiy (p. 14) : — " Vhica pervinca, or Clematis daphnoides, flowers plentifully every year, but never produces the pod or seed-vessels in its native soil, especially in these colder climates ; because most of its nourishment is spent in sending forth abundance of new twigs and leaves, by which it overspreads the whole ground ; but if it be put into a pot, and all its stolons or shoots be taken off, but one or two of the strongest, then it will produce the pod or seed-vessel, which shall contain seed till it ripen, according to the observation of Dr. Morison and Dr. Tournelort." Uay also notices the rarity of its fruiting (Methodus Plant, p. 8, 1682). — W. T. Thiselton Dyer.

��Bromus ramosus, HnJs. — Without disputing the distinctness of the ordinary British form from the possibly not indigenous B. asper, L., of Beneken, it is as well to point out, by way of warning, that the restric- tion in our English plant of the number of lowest branches of the panicle to two is not an absolute diagnostic character. In Hooker's ' Student's Flora ' they are described as 2-3-nate ; and Dr. Boswell-Syme pointed out to me in his garden at Balmuto a cultivated tuft of the grass, in which this was very conspicuously shown, near Linlithgow. I also met this summer with a plant in which there were four branches at the base of the panicles, but agreeing in other characters with ordinary raviosus. — W. T. Thiselton Dyer.

I have several times noticed one common form with more than two branches at the lowest semi-verticil. A plant which I collected at Win- chester this autunui had three branches, and Mr. Warren has sent me speci- mens from near Shrew^sbury with tht; same number. As I pointed out at p. 270, it is by the coexistence of several characters that the plants are distinguished; probably the relative length of the awns and palea-, and of the two glumes, are the best single characters. Dr. Ascheron, of Berlin, informs me that the restricted £. aaper of Beneken is really the common form in many parts of Germany, though so scarce in more western Europe. — Henry Trimen.

��TEMPERATURE OP PUNGI. Last week I met with a number of specimens of the Giant Puff-ball, Lycoperdon (/igcndenni, while making one of my usual weekly class excur- sions in the neighbourhood of Cirencester. Two of them were selected, a large and a small one, for museum specimens, while a portion of a very large one was placed by me in my l)otanical box. Next morning, on opening the box, I fouiul the contents sensibly warm to the hand, and had no difHciilty in tracing the eftect to its cause. The portion of Pungus was quite warm, and had communicated part of its warmth to the other plants in the box. Unfortunately, no thermometer was at hand at the time, or a careful reading of the temperature would have been made. The smaller specimen of the Puff-ball, weighing 1 lb., was taken, and placed in a box, where it remained all night. Next morning, two read-

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