92 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[ArniL 1, 1866. 



BOTANY. 



The Coral-hoot. — The coral-root {Dentaria 

 hulbife to) is one of the rarer British plants, being- 

 found in but few of the English counties, and in 

 but one Scottisli locality — in the county of Ayr. It 

 is a very elegant species, growing, usually in patches, 

 in woods, and blossoming at the end of April and 

 beginning of May. Though a tall plant, and having 

 large bright-coloured blossoms, it is extremely liable 

 to be overlooked, except in the flowering season, as 

 the stems and leaves soon wither, and the latter, 

 in a young state, bear considerable resemblance to 

 those of the Gout-weed {JEgopodium Podagra net). 

 The method in which the coral-root is propagated 

 is somewhat remarkable : its elegant flowers seldom, 

 if ever, produce seed ; nor is this necessary, for in 

 the axils of the leaves are small buds or bulbs, which 

 are described by Parkinson (a voluminous writer of 

 the seventeenth century) as being " of a sad purplish- 

 green colour, which being ripe and put into the 

 ground will grow to be a roote, and beare leaves 

 like as the bulbes of a red-bulbed lillie." These 

 bulbs easily fall off, and are with difficulty retained 

 upon dried specimens ; to them the plant owes its 

 specific name, bulbifera, or bulb-bearing. The flowers 

 are of a delicate purplish-lilac colour, not easily 

 imitated, and all the pictures of coral-root which we 

 have seen fail to represent it correctly, but this 

 colour fades away during, or shortly after, the 

 process of drying. The blossoms have usually a 

 faint sweet scent, and their shape at once places 

 them in the order of Crossbeam's, or Cruciferee. 

 Mr. Syme, in the new edition of " English Botany " 

 now publishing, ranks the coral-root among the 

 species of Cardamiue, or Bitter-cress, which 

 genus it certainly resembles in many important 

 characters. The English name, coral-root, and the 

 Latin, Dentaria, or Tooth-wort, are founded on the 

 curious appearance presented by the root, which is 

 long, thick, brittle, and very white, running along 

 horizontally at a short distance beneath the ground, 

 and appearing somewhat like branches of white 

 coral. It is covered with large white scales, which 

 are supposed to resemble teeth ; when the root is 

 dried, however, it shrivels up, and these pecu- 

 liarities arc no longer observable. In the olden 

 times, coral-root, like every other plant, had its 

 " vertues." Parkinson, in his " Theatrum Botani- 

 cum" (a quarto work of about 2,000 pages), in- 

 forms us that " a drain of the powder of the roote 

 taken for many days together in red wine is exceed- 

 ing good for inward wounds that are made in the 

 breast and longs ; " and it is also " very benclicial 

 to be drunke in the distilled water of the hcrbe 

 called Horsetail." A representation of the plant is 

 also given, under the English name of " Toothed 

 Violet," which exhibits many features of interest. 



This author appears to have first discovered the 

 Dentaria in this country; he mentions it as having 

 been found " at Mayfield, in Sussex, in a wood 

 called Highreede, and in another wood called 

 Eoxholes, both of them belonging to Mr. Stephen 

 Perkhurst at the writing hereof." Bay, in his 

 "Synopsis," takes no notice of it, nor does Dille- 

 nius, his subsequent editor. Blackstone, in 1737, 

 records it as growing abundantly in the Old Park 

 Wood, at Harefield, in Middlesex, a locality in 

 which, as well as in other neighbouring woods, it 

 may still be found. Turner, in 1S01, mentions it 

 in his "Botanist's Guide," on the authority of 

 Mr. Gotobed, as growing in the woods at Loud- 

 water, between Beaconsfield and High Wycombe, 

 Bucks, where it still abounds. It is, indeed, to be 

 seen in almost every wood round Wycombe, as well 

 as near Chesham and Aylesbury ; so that the county 

 of Buckingham appears to be the head-quarters of 

 the plant. My own observations lead me to suspect 

 that Oxfordshire will be found to produce it. In 

 addition, the coral-root is found in Kent, Sussex, 

 and Hertfordshire, and the county of Surrey is sup- 

 posed to lay claim to it also. Many handsome 

 species are cultivated in gardens. — B. 



Cedar. — A Cedar of Lebanon, in the garden of 

 the Vicarage, Bredwardine, produced its first fertile 

 cone last year. Prom good authority I make out 

 its age to be 42-45 years. — B. B. 



Early Plowers. — I have found the following 

 flowers here since the 1st of February : — Primrose 

 on February 2 ; violet, February 5 ; wild straw- 

 berry, February 5 ; early orchis {Orchis mascula) on 

 the 7th of February ; daffodils and snowdrops on 

 the 1st ; also wart cress and charlock on the 20th. 

 There is also a horse chestnut nearly out about half 

 a mile from here. — W. B., Tenby, Pembrokeshire. 



Heartsease (p. 67). — " Stiefmutterchen" is 

 the principal German pet name, "Je longer je lieber" 

 is not, but is applied to the honeysuckle. The Ger- 

 man for "Three foldenness flower" is " Dreifaltig- 

 keitsblume," and not "Dayfaltigkeitsblume, which 

 has no meaning whatever. — Justus Eck. 



Heartsease. — The German name of Viola tricolor 

 is "Dreilaltigkeitsblume," Trinity flower. The 

 French " Herbe de la Trinite " is the Hepatic 

 anemone {Anemone hepatica) . — B., Melle. 



Baxyan of India .—Perhaps the following memo- 

 randum respecting a large banyan tree {Ficus 

 lndica), now standing in the jungle at Margonerly, 

 in Mysore, may be acceptable to you for Science 

 Gossir. The trunk is 71 feet 2 inches in girth, and 

 the greatest horizontal diameter of the head of 

 foliage is 1SS feet; the height was not ascertained. 

 — G. E. Bulger, Bangalore. 



British Fungi.— Socman's " Journal of Botany" 

 for the present month contains descriptions of 

 seventy species of minute Fungi, new to Britain, by 

 Mr. M. C. Cooke. 



