2?S 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Dec. 1, 18*37- 



moment as green as any other part of the tree. The 

 leaves are, however, a little smaller than the rest, 

 looking more like the common wild ivy ; so that the 

 severed part is evidently short of food, and will, 

 probably, sooner or later die. — Robert Holland. 



The Rue (Ruta graveolens). — In botanical books 

 the common garden rue is described as a tetramerous 

 flower, having four petals and eight stamens ; but 

 it is not, I think, generally known that, like the 

 Adoxa, it hath both tetramerous and pentamerous 

 flowers. The uppermost flower of each bunch always 

 opens first, and is, so far as I have seen, always 

 pentamerous, having the parts in fives, with ten 

 stamens, while all the other flowers of the bunch 

 have'four petals and eight stamens, as described in 

 the books. The rue is interesting, as being one of 

 those plants in which, like the saxifrages, nature 

 seems to have made special provision for self- 

 impregnation, by giving spontaneous motion to the 

 stamens, which advance and stand over the pistil 

 when they shed their pollen. The stamens are 

 rather curiously arranged. One half of them are 

 opposite to, and lie within, the hollow petals ; the 

 others are alternate, and have no petals behind 

 them, but their filaments are bent sideways, so that 

 their anthers may lie alongside of the others in the 

 petals. The alternate stamens first rise up perpen- 

 dicularly to shed their pollen upon the short pistil ; 

 shen the opposite stamens do the same, and finally 

 all fall back and lie, extended straightly, upon or 

 between the petals. — Robert Holland. 



Boletus impolitus again. — The remarks of 

 " W. G. S." in our last have resulted in another 

 communication from " H. B.," and from his expla- 

 nation, description, and drawings, there can be no 

 doubt whatever that the Boletus alluded to in his 

 communication at p. 235, was the true Boletus 

 impolitus, Fr., and not Boletus felleus as suggested 

 by " W. G. S." We must therefore conclude that 

 difference of taste has led to a different appreciation 

 of the edible qualities of this fungus. — Ed. S. G. 



Art versus Nature. — That the laws of Nature 

 are all-powerful, and that the force they exercise 

 over animate and inanimate beings is stronger than 

 the force of art, is well illustrated in the following 

 circumstance : — A small spruce fir-tree, transplanted 

 into a pot, was used at a children's party as a 

 Christmas-tree. When it was done with, it was 

 planted on the lawn as a memorial ; but owing to 

 some injury the top shoot died, and the tree was 

 without a leader. I cut off the dead shoot, and, 

 choosing what I thought to be the strongest of the 

 five radiating sideshoots, I bent it upwards, fixing 

 it in a perpendicular direction by means of wires 

 and a stick, in the hope that it would make a new 

 leader. At the end of six or eight months I took 

 away the wires, and found that my new leader 



remained perfectly upright as I had wished it to do ; 

 but I observed at the same time that another of the 

 side-shoots appeared to be bending upwards of its 

 own accord, which it continued to do until, at the 

 end of last year, it had far outstripped my artificial 

 leader, quite ignoring the fact that I had already 

 repaired the injury. During the present year it has 

 gone on growing upwards, and it is now a fine 

 healthy leading shoot more than a foot long, almost 

 in a perfectly continuous line with the main stem, 

 and with lateral shoots radiating from it, whilst 

 my leader, owning itself vanquished, has bent down 

 again into its old place, and become once more a 

 lateral shoot. — Robert Holland. 



Pink Primroses.— Wild primroses are sometimes 

 found with the flowers of a dingy pink colour. This 

 year I have seen two examples of apparently the 

 same variety produced from seed saved from good 

 garden polyanthuses ; and I should, therefore, think 

 that the wild pink ones are not varieties, but hybrids 

 produced by impregnation with polyanthus pollen 

 through the agency of insects, and that the plants 

 in the garden had resulted from a similar cross with 

 primrose pollen. — Robert Holland. 



Eilago Gallica (L.) in Surrey. — Perhaps some 

 of the readers of Science-Gossip, and more par- 

 ticularly those who make Surrey the scene of their 

 labours, will be glad to learn of the above mentioned 

 addition to their Elora. It has been credited 

 already from Herts, Kent, and one or two counties, 

 as well as the old locality of Bcrechurch, Essex : — 

 The Surrey locality is in a cornfield between the 

 Chilworth Woods and St. Martha's Hill, near Guild- 

 ford, through which the footpath to the chapel 

 passes. I did not observe it in great profusion.— 



/. a m. 



Rat -tailed Radish. — Last spring a professedy 

 new vegetable, and one said to be hitherto unknown 

 in England, was offered to the public, and some of 

 my friends caught the bait, expecting to grow some 

 marvellous esculent as a table dainty. The Raphanus 

 caudatus has I suspect disappointed the hopes of 

 those who invested their sixpence for one of the 

 precious seeds, and some were rather surprised 

 when I told them that more than fifteen years ago 

 some of the seed of this plant had been sent me by 

 a relative from India. It grew like a weed in the 

 gardens of friends in Cornwall and Hertfordshire, to 

 whom I sent some, was soon voted a nuisance, and 

 Raphanus was eradicated. The pendant pod, like 

 the seed-pod of the common radish, is slightly pun- 

 gent, but rather insipid than otherwise.— /. Reynolds 

 Gwathin. , 



Areca SrATHE.— Many of the common drinking 

 and baling utensils in the Malay boats are made 

 from the spathe of the Areca palm.— Bennett. 



