Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/186

 the cause of this mischief, for it grows thick among the grass of Mr. Singleton's enclosure, and I have strong reasons for believing that the same plant occasions the blindness with which sheep and goats are commonly seized, after feeding on the rich flats at the head of the Swan and on the Helena and Canning Rivers; several of Mr. Singleton's horses having gone blind, before any other dangerous symptoms supervened. I suspect this Ranunculus to have the same effects on animals as are produced by cantharides, when taken internally, upon the human frame.

After spending two days with Mr. Singleton, I found an opportunity of proceeding to Freemantle by Mr. Oakley's cart, and noticed in this journey those species of phosphorescent Agarics to which I have alluded in my letter. . 

 Additional Observations on the pollen-collectors of Campanula. In reference to his paper on this subject, given at p. 601 of our First Volume, Mr. Wilson remarks; “I find the same structure in C. ranunculoides, as in C. rotundifolia, except that the three branches of the stigma become decidedly revolute, and thus come into contact with the pollen lodged upon the collecting hairs; but this does not occur until after the hairs are retracted into their cavities, and consequently long after fecundation may be supposed to have taken place.

"The pollen sends out tubes from four points which are previously visible as circular disks. The pollen-tubes appear to be branched, and much entangled; their diameter not more than one fifth of the tubular cells composing the stigmatic tissue, and on that account they would be very distinguishable if they penetrated that tissue, but I could never find any in that part, and still less within the ovarium. On the other hand, I extracted a grain of pollen from one of the cells of an invaginated hair on the style which exhibited traces of four pollen-tubes. 