BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS 255 



counted nearly forty such balls, the twigs being almost all affected. 

 The shoot remains stunted, and the leaves are barely half their 

 normal size. The leaf-stalks and chief veins are thickened and 

 unusually hairy. On the backs of the leaves in the beginning of 

 August were many young insects, apterous females, and a few 

 pupae. By the end of August the winged insects had emerged and 

 taken flight, and only a few wingless and young insects remained. 

 Some of the insects agreed well with the description and figures 

 of A. Sorbi, Kalt., but others showed considerable variability in the 

 ground colour, from olive-green to dull yellowish white ; and of the 

 winged females, some had blackish transverse markings over a large 

 part of the upper surface of the abdomen, while others showed only 

 the row of dots down each side, as described by Buckton. I am 

 not aware of this Aphis having been recorded from Scotland 

 previously. It was not altogether easy to examine the pseudogalls. 

 Whenever the twigs were touched, Wood Ants swarmed out from 

 between the leaves of the balls, and at once placed themselves in 

 the position to resist interference with what they evidently regarded 

 as their possessions. Every ball was occupied by the ants, often 

 about a dozen in each, and they formed a very efficient guard. It 

 reminded me of the very close relations that exist between numerous 

 plants and ants in the tropics (as I frequently have seen them in 

 Brazil) ; only, on the Rowan the ant-dwellings are due to the presence 

 of a parasite hurtful to the plant though useful to the ants, not due 

 to peculiarities in structure of the host plants. JAMES W. H. TRAIL. 



The year 1902 has established a very bad record in Scotland 

 for continued inclemency and low temperature. Agricultural reports 

 from all parts of the country indicate a general agreement that 

 vegetation shows over a month's backwardness as compared with 

 a fairly warm season. The first barley was cut in Aberdeenshire in 

 the last week of August, and a field of oats was begun on 5th 

 September ; but both these were in the very early district of Fyvie, 

 and almost everywhere oats were still quite green in September. 

 The Ling (Calluna Erica] only began to open towards the end of 

 August, at a date when it is frequently almost out of flower. Careful 

 records of the effects on vegetation of so marked a departure from 

 normal seasons would be of much interest. 



At the Conference of the Pharmaceutical Society in Dundee in 

 August, the President, Mr. George Claridge Druce, M.A., F.L.S., 

 took as the subject of his address, " The Progress of Scottish 

 Botany" from the year 1684 onwards, that year being selected as 

 that in which appeared Sibbald's " Scotia Illustrata." The importance 

 of the work of the earlier explorers is well shown, G. Don's contribu- 

 tions especially being very fully treated. The species and forms 

 peculiar (within the British Islands) to Scotland are enumerated 



