1VTE. JOHN HOGG ON THE TREE MALLOW. 51 



establish themselves happened to die. I have since had abundant 

 opportunity of observing similar cases, and there are none more 

 striking than those afforded by the beautiful genus (or subgenus 

 of Bryum) Acidodontium, of which there are numerous species in 

 the Andes, and all choose their habitat on living branches, some 

 preferring the slenderest twigs of the loftiest trees, whereon the 

 dense pulvinate tufts sit perched quite like those of many Ortho- 

 trieTia and Zygodontes. It is true that Humboldt and Bonpland 

 found their Bryum megalocarpum (Hook.) " in crepidinibus inter 

 Tulcan et Quito," and that in a similar situation I picked up my 

 first Acidodontium, but a piece of bark attached to the latter re- 

 vealed its arboreous origin. There is indeed one species, on Mount 

 Tunguragua, which I have to this day seen only on fallen branches, 

 recently torn from lofty trees by the winds. I can only state 

 further, for the present, that I have satisfied myself, by observation 

 and experiment, that these and many other ramicolous mosses do 

 actually sustain themselves (in part) at the expense of the branch 

 whereon they grow, and even in many cases without causing the 

 slightest lesion of the cortical integument. 

 Ambato, Ecuador, Dec. 17, 1859. 



— ^— — — 



v 

 Xote on the Tree Mallow. By John Hogg, Esq., F.B.S., F.L.S. 



[Read April 19th, I860.] 



I beg to exhibit to the Linnean Society a small piece of the stern 



and bark of the Tree Mallow (Lavatera arborea, Linn.), a species 



now rare in Britain. 



Linnaeus, in his 1st edition of the ' Species Plantarum,' 1753, 

 does not appear to have known that the plant was a native of so 

 northern a district as the British Islands, for he there refers it to 

 the west coast of Italy, and says, — " Habitat inter Pisa* et Li- 

 burnuni." 



In the last week of August 1857, I gathered some ripe seeds 

 from a plant which I found on the coast of the South of Ireland ; 

 the plant itself being not much more than 4 feet in height. 1 

 sowed some of the seeds in April 1858 in my garden in rich soil ; 

 but the young plants were not transplanted, and did not flower 

 that year. During the last spring and the beginning of the 

 summer (1859), though a very dry season, two or three of the 

 plants grew very rapidly, and attained more than 7 feet in height. 

 They flowered freely all the latter part of the summer, and during 

 the autumn. 



