HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE- GO SSIP. 



231 



hundreds of these beetles on the beach of the Atlan- 

 tic, and every wave would wash up others, many of 

 them still alive. At the Railroad "pier," which 

 extends a quarter of a mile out into Delaware Bay, 

 I found these insects scattered all along 1 , even out 

 to the end, where vessels are loaded with freight 

 brought down from the interior ; and here it is where 

 the danger to England and other countries in Europe 

 lies. Intercepted by the Atlantic coast, they will 

 creep into any shelter — lumber piles, warehouses, 

 vessels, &c. — and in this manner may be carried 

 abroad in spite of the non-importation of potatoes. — 

 S. S. Bathon, Lancaster, U.S.A. 



BOTANY. 



White Goosefoot {Chcnopodium album). — Will 

 some friend who is a chemist as well as a botanist 

 kindly inform the writer what the saline incrustation 

 on this plant is ? It is very thickly incrusted all 

 round the flower-buds, so as to be distinctly visible 

 by means of an ordinary pocket lens. Is it potash, 

 or what? Whatever it is, the plant must greatly 

 exhaust the soil where it grows. — H. Few. 



Re-discovery of Rare Plants. — It will no 

 doubt interest your botanical readers to learn that 

 Malva borealis, Wall. = M. pusilla, Smith —Inparoi- 

 flora, Huds., has been rediscovered on the pebbly 

 coast ol Sussex during the months of July and 

 August of the present year. There are four patches 

 of it, with from twenty to thirty plants, within a 

 distance of less than half a mile. How it could 

 have so long escaped the keen eyes of botanists is 

 surprising, as -from the appearance of the older 

 plants it is no doubt perennial. A specimen has 

 been sent to the Royal Herbarium at Kew, and has 

 been verified by Professor Oliver, who has retained 

 it for the Herbarium. According to Hooker and 

 Arnott, Malva pusilla, &c. &c., has been found but 

 once in this country, and that at Hythe in Kent, 



eighty years since.— C. A. 0. 



♦ 



English Plant Names. — Part I. of the " Dic- 

 tionary of English Plant Names," by James Britten, 

 is now going through the press, and Mr. Britten 

 will be glad to have any contributions addressed to 

 him on this interesting subject at the British 

 Museum. 



White Varieties of Flowers found in 

 Warwickshire. — " Scabiosa arvensis, succisa, 

 Borago officinalis, found at Allesley ; Primula vul- 

 garis, found at Allesley and Wootton ; Campanula 

 rotundifolia, at Allesley and Coleshill; latifolia, 

 at Allesley ; . . . Campanula patula, nearMeriden ; 

 Viola odorata, Allesley ; Colchicum autumnale, at 

 Allesley; Vaccinium MurtUlus, fruit and flowers 

 found white, in woods, Allesley and Corley ; Erica 



vulgaris, tetralix, and ciuerea, at Coleshill Heath ; 

 Trifolium officinale, in bogs near Coleshill ; Cnicus 

 lanceolatus, palustris, and arvensis, at Allesley ; . . . 

 Orchis latifolia, at Coleshill ; Conopsea, bogs near 

 Coleshill ; maculata, Allesley and Coleshill. . . . 

 It will almost immediately occur to any one, on 

 perusing the above list, that the plants most apt to 

 produce white varieties are such as usually bear 

 blue, purple, or pink flowers. Yellow flowers are 

 but little subject to variations in colour. The 

 common cowslip, however, when raised from seed 

 in a garden, is an exception, though in a perfectly 

 wild state I never knew it to vary in colour." — 

 Rev. IF. T. Bree. 



DOUBLE-FLOWERED WlLD PLANTS. —We have 



repeatedly met with flowers of corn feverfew 

 {Matricaria inodora) somewhat like those described 

 by "R. W." in your August number. They con- 

 sisted wholly of ray florets, those which ordinarily 

 occupy the disc being absent. Sometimes the 

 florets were most symmetrically set, which gave the 

 blossoms a cultivated appearance ; whilst others 

 were intermixed with green, narrow, branched 

 segments like rudimentary foliage. These curious 

 varieties occur in fallow-fields in winter or early 

 spring, and are long-lived, surviving all perfect 

 flowers of the same species. Their longevity is due, 

 I suppose, to their close double structure, the want 

 of stamens to effect fertilization, and the time ot 

 year when they are to be found. The common daisy 

 may be seen with double or multiplied rays, though 

 these are not so numerous as to affect the hemi- 

 spherical form of the disc. The petals of the outer 

 florets of cow-parsnip {Heracleum sphondylium) and 

 florets in the head of Dutch clover {Trifolium 

 repens) are sometimes double. We have also 

 observed another sort of doubling, or rather mal- 

 formation, in which a stem of daisy or dandelion 

 much compressed, especially at top, has caused an 

 oblong single, semi-double-triple flower-head to be 

 produced ; the half flowers linked together by what 

 may be termed a confluent neck, one calyx binding 

 the whole and making in its course, in consequence, 

 a waved outline. And as great a peculiarity in the 

 ribwort plantain {Plantago lanceolata), where the 

 stem has supported a spike bearing lateral spikelets. 

 — B.D. 



Variegated and Ornamental Eoliage of 

 Wild Plants. — Single leaves of many species are 

 frequently seen blotched, streaked with yellow, or 

 blanched ; but we have witnessed through spring 

 and summer the growth of a garden-like variegation 

 of bright yellow in the dropwort {Spircea filipendula) , 

 bramble {Rubus fruticosus), spear and creeping this- 

 tles {Cnicus lanceolatus and arvensis), and daisy, and 

 of light yellow in rest-harrow, Dutch clover, and 

 bird's-foot trefoil. The milk thistle {Carduus mari- 



