2IO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



this country, and was taken by Dr. Leach. The 

 second was met with by Mr. T. Walton, in the New 

 Forest ; and Mr. Samuel Stevens captured a third at 

 Wcybridge, July 4ih, 1S42. Tlie species is no doubt 

 very rare, not only the precise spot where Mr. 

 Stevens took it, but also the surrounding country 

 has been searched every season since its capture, 

 without its being again met with." Since the above 

 work was published, Macropis has been taken by 

 Mr. Bridgman in the neighbourhood of Norwich. 



" Thk Butterflies]of EbRori:," by H. C. Lang, 

 M.D., F.L.S. (London : L, Reeve & Co.) Part ix. 

 of this excellent work is issued. Both text and illus- 

 trations are fully up to the high standard we have 

 had to commend in previous parts. 



BOTANY. 



Begonia .\nd Bignonia. — Being shown a fine 

 begonia the other day, and asked whether the plant 

 had any resemblance to a bignonia, I was amused at 

 the ignorance of botany displayed in the question, 

 but it afterwards occurred to me that some of your 

 readers might be interested in the origin of the names 

 of these two families of plants. The begoniacere are 

 now well known to be related to the cucurbital or 

 gourd tribe. The begonia, from which genus the 

 order takes its name, was first described by Charles 

 Plumier, a French botanist, who, pursuing his investi- 

 gations at St. Domingo, whilst M. Begon was governor 

 (1683-1685) of the French West India Islands under 

 Louis XIV, and receiving much patronage and kind- 

 ness from him, gave his new genus of plants the name 

 Begonia. The proper collocation of the order has 

 given much trouble to botanists, and the recent dis- 

 covery of a new genus in the Sandwich Islands shows 

 that it has an aflinity with the saxifragere, as was 

 pointed out by Professor Oliver, But its unisexual 

 (lowers will merely keep it in the cucurbital alliance. 

 'I'iie beautiful trumpet-shaped flowers of the bignonia 

 "are the glory," says Lindley, " of the places which 

 llic species inhabit." They are found between the 

 tropics in both hemispheres, and in America extend 

 from Pennsylvania to Chili. The name was given by 

 the great French botanist Tournefort, in honour of 

 I he Abbe Jean Paul Bignon, who was made king's 

 librarian to Louis XV. in 1718, and died in 1743. 

 The only resemblance (if it may be called so) of the 

 bignoniacex- to the begoniace.x is that no species of 

 either is native in Europe. Allied orders are the 

 acanthace.x .ind the widely diffused scrophulariacea;, 

 the commonest genus of which, the humble but beau- 

 tiful veronica, we seldom fail to see "whene'er we 



take our walks abroad " in the country. But the 



bignonia is sometimes found forming large trees in 



the forests of Brazil.— W. T. Lynn. 



Malformation of a Fuchsia,— Passing through 

 a friend's greenhouse the other day, my attention was 

 called to a curious fuchsia. The flower was solitary 

 and axillary, and from the peduncle, which was un- 

 usually long and stout, a perfectly formed green leaf 

 was growing. The calyx tube was very short, and the ■ 

 four segments of the limb spread from different points. 

 One of the segments was almost entirely converted 

 into a leaf. The leaf part was broad, serrated, 

 deeply veined, and very much puckered, while the 

 other edge was narrow, smooth, and coloured like 

 the ordinary segments.—^. C. R. Langley, Bo'J 

 Brickhill, Fenny Stratford. 



Leucobryum glaucum, var. minus. — During 

 a visit to the New Forest, by Mr. B. Piffard, in the 

 spring of the present year, that gentleman obtained 

 gatherings of mosses, although the primary object of 

 his visit was entomological. Subsequently duplicates 

 of these mosses were sent to me, and amongst others 

 was one that particularly arrested my attention. 

 Being unable to determine it, this with others was 

 sent to Mr. Boswell for identification. A reply was 

 immediately returned, and the specimen in question 

 was named, L. glnnciiin var. minus ; my correspon- 

 dent remarking that he had sought for it in vain in 

 the New Forest, and would like to know the exact 

 locality in which it was discovered. Eventually Dr. 

 Braithwaite had a specimen submitted to him, and 

 that gentleman remarked that he did not know of it 

 as a European plant, but only as occurring in North 

 America. He moreover suggested that, as I purposed 

 to visit the New Forest, the subject should be then 

 investigated. Accordingly, when staying at Brock- 

 enhurst for a few days in July, the station described 

 to me by Mr. Piffard was visited, and after a careful 

 search, the moss was observed in the locality where 

 first discovered. It occurs in small circular or oblong 

 tufts, from an inch to four or five in diameter, with 

 elevated centres, and of a bright glaucous-green hue. 

 The height of the plants varies from half an inch to 

 an inch, and it is altogether a much more diminutive 

 plant than the usual type. The latter grows in great 

 profusion in the forest, and tufts may be seen eight 

 or nine inches in depth, in favourable situations. 

 The variety now referred to grows chiefly at the roots 

 of beech trees, rarely oak, on elevated spots, with a 

 sandy subsoil. As I write this there are lying before 

 me several tufts of the moss, dried as in nature, and 

 they have taken so kindly to the process that they 

 appear just as they did, when, like fairy velvet 

 cushions, they clustered round the protruding roots of 

 the grand old forest beeches. Thinking that prob- 

 ably other specimens would occur in similar localities 

 in the neighbourhood, I revisited the place and spent 

 many hours in careful examination of every likely 

 spot. The result was gratifying, for it was found to 

 occur in unlimited quantities in some half a dozen 

 places near Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst, and in one 



