BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 215 
closely from time to time, which alone would enable any one to 
arrive at an accurate result. There are several analogous cases 
amongst the Fungi and Lichens, where plants increase annually 
by fresh zones. In the Lichens the centre of such plants gra- 
dually decays, and leaves only a wider circle of the two or three 
last zones. In these, of course, the vitality of the plant can only 
exert itself in one plane (the surface of the stone, or tile on which 
it grows), and therefore never can become spherical. In some of 
the Fungi, again, as in the dimidiate T#e/ephore and Polypori, we 
see instances of plants increasing by annual layers, and in the 
latter, especially, acquiring an approximation to a spherical form. 
The nearest analogy to the Conferva is, perhaps, the Spheria con- 
centrica. Now all these plants, from the necessity of the case, 
can only be semi-spherical, the surface on which they grow pre- 
venting a complete sphericity; but the Conferva, not being 
attached to anything, and finding an equal degree of nutriment 
from the water on every side, acquires, I apprehend, very soon, 
the peculiar form in which we find it. I am sorry I have nothing 
more to communicate to you than the impression derived from a 
single visit to the locality (though I was there for an hour or two 
making all the observations I could), and which I have no doubt 
a closer scrutiny, repeated at different seasons, would have 
enabled me to render more correct. It was with a view of being 
able oftener to observe the plant that I sent some specimens to 
the pool at the lodge ; but my poor brother’s death has placed that . 
locality even more out of my reach than Culmere Mere, nor do I 
know whether the plants still exist there. : 
«T, GALWAY: 
THIBETIAN BARLEY. 
The Agro-Horticultural Society of Bombay have been so 
obliging as to send overland to the Royal Gardens of Kew, a - 
package of a kind of Barley with naked seed (that is, of which the 
grain separates from the husk, in thrashing, as does that of wheat), — — 
22 p 
