BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 537 
res, 3—4-pollicaris, nigrescens. Semina plurima, oblonga, compressa, 
membranaceo-alata, aterrima, nitida. 
During the anthesis, the tube of the perigone is filled with a 
sweet and viscous liquid. This Phormium blossomed at Cher- 
bourg, from the 15th of May, 1847, to the end of June; the 
capsules took then a pretty large extension, but the ovules being 
void of embryo, produced but barren seeds. The leaves are more 
narrow, straight, stiff and pale, than those of the common Phor- 
mium, which, in all our gardens, grows in luxuriant tufts, and 
blossomed here in July, 1822, for the second time in France. 
The introduction into Europe of this new kind of Phormium, 
may prove very important with respect to industry ; it appears, 
indeed, to produce the fine flax, to which Sir Joseph Banks and 
Labillardiére called the attention of the economists, and is a fur- 
ther instance of the importance of specific distinctions, when 
they are laid down in the fields of practice. 
Thus M. Decaisne demonstrated (Icon. agricult. pratiq. 1845, 
p. 767.) that the Chinese employ two kinds of nettles for the fa- 
brication of their clothing, &c., and that we have received hitherto in 
France but a single kind, which produces a very inferior hemp. 
The same fact has perhaps taken place again as to the Phormium ; 
the flax obtained in France proceeds from the yellow kind, and has 
proved to be of a bad quality, whilst the red-flowered plant pro- 
duces the best flax used in New Zealand. Indeed, Dr. J. Dal- 
ton Hooker says, “that the P4. Colensoi yields a very different and 
much finer flax than the other." It will be then of great import- - 
ance to make comparative experiments between the flax of the 
two species we possess now in Cherbourg. 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Extract from the “Innas News,” for April, 1848: North-West 
Provinces. 
Sometime in the year 1842, we entered at considerable length, 
in three different issues, on the absolute necessity that existed for 
the adoption of some immediate steps on the part of Government, 
