i86 



HARDWI CKE 'S S CIENCE -GOSS IT-. 



BOTANY, 



Plant-Crystals. — At the last meeting of the East 

 Kent National History Society, at Canterbury, Mr. 

 W. H. Hammond read a paper on this subject, and 

 illustrated his observations by numerous admirably- 

 prepared slides, exhibiting excellent specimens of true 

 Raphides, long crystal prisms, short prismatic crys- 

 tals, and Spha.n-aphides, so as to show the different 

 forms of the various kinds of plant-crystals. And in 

 order to give a bird's-eye view of them, he laid be- 

 fore the meeting the numerous engravings which had 

 been published thereon by Professor Gulliver in the 

 "Annals of Natural History," November, 1863, the 

 "Monthly Microscopical Journal," December, 1873, 

 and Science-Gossip, May, 1873. After observing 

 the gross errors both of omission and commission in 

 our current botanical treatises, including even the last 

 edition of the "Microscopical Dictionary," Mr. Ham- 

 mond proceeded to show the importance of a subject 

 so lamentably neglected or maltreated l)y botanical 

 writers. These crystals afford an inexhaustible supply 

 of beautiful objects for microscopic examination, as 

 regards both pleasure and profit ; and this is in itself 

 a great recommendation, now that the microscope is 

 happily rivalling or superseding the piano in so many 

 intelligent families. But these crystals are by no 

 means mere curiosities. They are one of the means 

 by which nature so bountifully provides stores of cal- 

 careous salts as food for animals to build up their 

 solid tissues, and as manure when restored to the 

 earth in the decaying leaves. and other parts of plants. 

 And Raphides afford such valuable characters in sys- 

 tematic botany that by them alone such orders in the 

 British Flora as Onagmcciv, Galiacccs, and Balsami- 

 nacece may be at once, at any stage of their existence, 

 distinguished from their nearest allies in the same 

 flora. And yet these plain and important characters 

 have ]iot yet been even noticed in our systematic 

 books ! Hence the whole subject requires that fur- 

 ther ventilation which may be given to it by the 

 readers of Science-Gossip, and which it has not 

 yet received from our metropolitan societies, nor in- 

 deed, according to Mr. Hammond, from any society 

 except that already mentioned. But the cr3'stals are 

 so numerous and beautiful, and so exquisitely adapted 

 for the preparation of slides for the microscope, that 

 they arc not likely to he much longer neglected. 



Forestry. — There are few of the specializations 

 of practical science ^\•hich have, of late years, been 

 so little studied as that of Forestry. We are therefore 

 glad to welcome another literary confrere, which has 

 just appeared under the title of T/ie Joiinial of 

 Forestry. We have received two numbers of this 

 shilling monthly, and believe, from its solid, and 

 attractive table of contents, that it will l)c welcomed 

 by all who love arboriculture. 



Epiphytal Plants. — On the 9th of June, while 

 walking with two friends through Stone Fenny, a 

 wooded dingle near Kidderminster, we observed the 

 Wild Raspberry [Ribes idtciis) and the Red Campion 

 (Lychnis diiiriia), the latter in flower, growing epi- 

 phytally upon an old pollard willow, at a height of 

 about eight feet from the ground. — Horace Pearce, 

 F.L.S. 



Origin of Long Stamens in Crucifer.^;. — 

 From a plant of the common watercress, I have just 

 gathered a raceme of unripe pods, one of which has 

 at its base a lateral flower, which appears to have been 

 developed within the original flower, perhaps in the 

 axil of one of the sepals. Having never read of such 

 a formation, I send you so much of the raceme as may 

 enable you to perceive its character ; and I also 

 enclose a similar pod which I gathered from the same 

 plant, more than a week ago, with two lateral flowers 

 at its base. As the origin of the two pairs of long 

 stamens in cruciferous plants has been the subject of 

 much discussion among botanists, may I suggest a 

 possibility that they may be the leaves of lateral buds 

 \\'ithin the flower, which buds are capable, under 

 exceptional circumstances, of being developed into 

 actual blossoms. — Jolui Gibbs, Essex and Clielmsford 

 Museum. 



Sussex Oaks. — In my "Rambles in Cowdray 

 Park," published in vol. xiii. of the new series (1867) 

 of the yoiinial of Horticulture, I made mention of 

 several famous oaks, among M'hich, in particular, one 

 individual called " Queen Elizabeth's Oak," so called 

 because traditionally said to be that under which her 

 INIajesty stood to shoot at the deer with a crossbow. 

 This lordly tree had, at the time I visited the neigh- 

 bourhood of Cowdray Park and INIidhurst, a very 

 picturesque appearance, and it was sound from top to 

 bottom. The trunk, at four feet from the ground, 

 measured 36 feet in circumference. In quoting this 

 measurement, I alluded to that given in " INIurray's 

 Handbook of Yorkshire," of the celebrated Cowthorpe 

 Oak, which was stated to be 36 feet 8 in. in girth, 

 consequently, if correct, only 8 inches superior in cir- 

 cumference to that of "Queen Elizabeth's." But 

 there appears to be an error somewhere, for there is a 

 very wide difference between the above-mentioned 

 figure and that given by Dr. Hooker in his excellent 

 little work, "The Student's Flora of the British 

 Isles" (1870), who quotes the girth of that forest 

 monster as 70 feet. — George iYeiulyn._ 



The "EDEL^VEISs" (Gnaphalium Leontopo- 

 dium). — There appears a probability of the extinction 

 of this beautiful rare Alpine plant, which was so much 

 noticed in the press, including Science Gossip, two or 

 three years back, in consequence of a lady staying at 

 Pontresina, in the Engadine, being said to have been 

 killed by an accident while searching for the plants by 

 the side of a glacier. In a paragraph in the Tv?ies 

 of the 3rd July, copied from the Echo, it is said that 



