Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/401

 SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. 373

two sheets, but the principle of all these modifications is identical. The air and rain are excluded, and cannot give rise to the discoloration of the label. — A. H. Chukch.

��Fruit of Vinca (pp. 14, 336). — I have before me ripe fruit of Vinca major, from the garden of Mr. J. Pristo, of Alverstone, Whippingham, Isle of Wight. I have also, I believe, seen ripe fruit of Vinca viimr from copses in the Isle of Wight in Dr. Bromfield's herbarium. — F. Stratton.

��DlGITARIA SANGUINALI3 NEAR PLYMOUTH. The ReV. H, N. Ella-

combe sends a specimen of Bujitaria savgnmalis, the true plant, gathered in waste ground in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. — J. G. Baker.

��SiLENE KOCTiFLORA, L. — I found this plant, in September last, growing sparingly in an arable field adjoining the river Dee, close to the railway viaduct half a mile south of Cefn, in Denbighshire. It is, I believe, new to the county and to the province of North Wales. — F. Stratton.

��Anthyllis DiLLENii, ScJuiUz. — Has this plant been found of late in a bog near Aberfraw, Anglesea ? A specimen of it is in the herbarium of the Koyal Institution, Liverpool, dated July, 1853, and collected by the late John Shillitoe. — J. Haubord Lewis. [A very unlikely plant to grow anywhere in a hog. — J. G. B.]

��Note on the Fertilization of Cereals. — I am not aware of any observatioris on the fertilization of cereals. This year I turned my attention to the subject, from being at work on the Grasses for the third edition of 'English Botany;' and as my residence is in the midst of corn- fields, I had ample op[)ortunities of investigating the subject. In Wheat and Barley the stignuis receive the pollen from the anthers before the latter are protruded, and the exsertcd anthers 1 found to be always empty. In the Oat most of the protruded anthers are empty, but occasionally finthers with pollen are to be found after protrusion, and sti<>nuis exposed at the sides of the florets, which 1 have not been able to tind in AVheat and Barley. All the British forms of the Jgropyrum section of Triticum, and Ilordenm murirnim, maritbiium, and bulLosKin. protrude their stigmas and unemptied anthers in the manner usual among the EiwyaulhefP. My observations are contined to the county of Fife, and the case of tlje Oat seems to show that the mode of fertilization is not always constant in the same species, so that observuiions are required in other places. The question is more important than it aj)])ears at first sight. 1 have noticed letters in the newspapers from farmers, predicting a bad wheat harvest because the " wind had blown ofl' the flowers." Noav, if the anthers may be blown oU' without aflecting the fertilization no harm is

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