HA RD WICKE 'S S CIENCE - G O SSI P. 



What is the ultimate stage of the pathological process I 

 have deso'ibed ? What is the name of this fungus 

 of wet-rot ? 



Dry-rot. — In badly-built houses wood gets the 

 dry-rot, or, in other words, damp develops a fungus 

 in dead wood, which soon crumbles it down to the 

 well-known russet powder. As this dry-rot of timber 

 cannot be called a disease, so in living trees the 

 brown wood crumbling into a russet powder is not a 

 disease, but the last stage of a prolonged process of 

 decay. Long before a tree shows the characteristic 

 signs of dry-rot, the wood has been deeply and exten- 

 sively discoloured ; it also loses its tenacity, and thus 

 shows how deeply its mode of nutrition has been 

 perverted. One of the elms in the Long Walk, two 

 hundred years old, was lately cut down, and the 

 whole trunk was of a deep brown colour, with the 

 exception of a few external rings of sound white 

 wood. I should suggest that the discoloration of 

 the wood is no more the disease than the cmmbling 

 wood and dust, and that the disease is some impair- 

 ment of the living force by which the tree started 

 into life, and has been able to grow. The disease 

 calls to its aid a fungoid growth, to damage the tex- 

 ture of the wood and to reduce it to powder. The 

 real cause of the disease is, therefore, some consti- 

 tutional taint, rendering it as incurable as cancer. In 

 examining that portion of the elm that was broken 

 across, after having been nearly sawn asunder, it was 

 beautiful to see the concentric deep brown rino-s, 

 separated by the broken ends of a white feathery 

 fluff. If that was a fungus, then it was already set 

 in the changes that accompany the discoloration of 

 the wood. Later on, the reduction of the wood to a 

 red dust is brought about by the fungus of dry-rot ; 

 but even if a fungoid growth were progressing from 

 top to the bottom of the tree, as in the elm, I should 

 no more call that internal fungus the disease than I 

 would say a tree was dying of the various fungi that 

 disfigure its beauty and foretell its death. Is the 

 fzingiis of dry-rot the same in all trees ? Is it the 

 same as the fungus of wet-rot? Is the' fungus of dry- 

 rot in a living oak the same as that of an oaken 

 beam ? 



Except in the instance related, I have never met 

 with dry-rot and wet-rot in the same tree ; neither 

 have I met with dry-rot and touchwood side by side 

 in the same tree : but nothing is so common as to 

 find oaks attacked by dry-rot in their trunk or in 

 some large branch, while their small branches are 

 being turned to touchwood, and strew the ground. 



Watering Window Plants with Cold Tea. 

 —It may perhaps interest your con-espondents about 

 this subject to learn that, in Germany, I have often 

 noticed that coffee was used for the same purpose, 

 and certainly all the plants so watered were remark- 

 ably fine.— il/rt//j'. 



A RAMBLE UP SCAUR. 



TO those readers of Science-Gossip who have 

 not had an opportunity of rambling up Scaur 

 Water, a tributary of the river Nith, the following 

 notes may prove interesting. 



Starting on a glorious day in July, from the pic- 

 turesque village of Thornhill, with its grand rows of 

 lime-trees shading the "quiet streets, we soon crossed 

 the beautiful stream of Nith, and slowly winding our 

 way through avenues of lordly ash-trees, entered the 

 quiet village of Penfont, situate on the banks of 

 Scaur. 



Traversing the public road for about a quarter of a 

 mile, we found ourselves in a well-wooded glade, 

 where the westerly breeze whispered amid the pend- 

 ing boughs of hoary oaks. 



The streamlet, through the lapse of ages, has worn 

 a narrow channel through a massive bed of grey- 

 wacke rock, whirling and edding as it rolls along its 

 moorland tide to join the calmer Nith. Pausing 

 here, the visitor is struck with awe while he looks 

 into the seething caldron below, made more gloomy 

 with the fitful shade of pending trees and a multitude 

 of indigenous shrubs which everywhere clothe its 

 banks. 



Here the botanist may gather on a solitary spot, 

 and the only locality in the district, the beautiful 

 Hclianthcmnm vulgare, and, in the.early spring, Draha 

 verna in abundance, and on the wet rocks Cardainine 

 hirsuta, with its near congener C. amara. 



Trollius Europa:us is equally abundant in the later 

 spring months, and is a sight worth beholding ■^^•hen 

 the golden cups are opened to the sun. Various 

 species of bedstraws are to be gathered, and on the 

 dry banks and rocks one of the commonest of the 

 British species, Galium saxatile, displays a profusion 

 of flowers that would make it worthy of a place in 

 the well-cultivated garden. Asperula odorata we 

 gathered in the last stage of decay, and nestling 

 amid the stones Ga-anium Robertianum displayed 

 its pink corolla. G. pratense and G. sylvaticum were 

 abundant in the meadows and woods. Ranunculus 

 auricomus, with Saxafraga gramtlata, are to be 

 found in their proper season. Various species of 

 labiate plants were picked up on our way up the 

 glen, one of the rarest being Stachys betonica. 



The woods were carpeted with a grand profusion of 

 Cow-wheat {Melampyrum pi-atense), and in the spongy 

 nooks Pcdicnlaris palustris, though past flowering, 

 was common. Splendid specimens of the Foxglove 

 (Digitalis purpurea), three and four feet high, were 

 observed by the roadside. 



Emerging from the brushwood, we come upon a 

 small knoll, free from the undergrowth, where Ha- 

 benaria viridis and H. albida reigned pre-eminent. 

 Orchis morio, O. mascula, O. latfolia, and 0. macu- 

 lata grew in the more moist places, with some few 

 plants of Listera az'afa. Wandering up a rocky glen. 



