Eeb. 1, 1SG9.] 



IIARDWICKE'S SCIENCE GOSSIP. 



43 



BOTANY. 



The Glastonbury Thorn.— There is, in Wy- 

 combe Park, a tree of this variety, known as Cra- 

 taegus oxyacuntha precox, which usually buds, but 

 does not blossom, in December. This season, how- 

 ever, many blossoms have fully expanded, induced 

 by the mildness of the weather to put in an appear- 

 ance ; their perfume being quite as powerful as 

 that of those which expand at the more usual time. 

 — Quart. Mag. of High Wycombe Nat. Hist. Society. 



The Wood Sorrel (p. 20).— Mr. Holland in- 

 tended to .draw attention to the fact that Oxalis 

 Acetosella produces seed from " apetalous flowers ;" 

 not from " a petalous flower," as your printer has 

 made it appear. Mr. Watson, in his " Compendium 

 of the Cybele," notes " summer flowers apetalous, 

 as in Viola." — B. 



Wood Sorrel.— Mr. Holland will find a notice 

 of the manner in which this pretty wild plant 

 produces its seed, in Barton & Castle's "Elora 

 Medica."— Helen E. Watney. 



Cholera Eungus. — After a series of long bota- 

 nical researches, Professor Ernest Hallier, of the 

 University of Jena, has convinced himself of the 

 presence in the excreta of cholera patients of a 

 microscopic fungus which exists in them in con- 

 siderable quantities. On submitting this minute 

 plant to a careful microscopical examination, the 

 distinguished botanist found that it has all the 

 characters of Urocistus oryza, which in India is 

 found sometimes in the rice plantations. Professor 

 Hallier then manured some rice plants with the 

 excreta in question, and finds that they perish 

 rapidly. A whole plantation may be thus destroyed 

 by the Urocistus in a very short space of time. — 

 Scientific Review. 



[Our contemporary, like Professor Hallier, has 

 leaped to an unj ustifiable conclusion. The researches 

 alluded to have assumed too much, and proved too 

 little. Scientific men do not believe in them, and 

 many months since we gave our grounds for reject- 

 ing wholly the supposed fungoid origin of cholera, in 

 " Country Life." — See also Dr. Thudicum's remarks 

 in the first Number of the Monthly Microscopical 

 Journal. — Ed. S. G.] 



Scurvy Grass. — This plant (Cochlearia offici- 

 nalis) is rare on the southern coast, at least I have 

 never found it there ; in the north, it is said to be 

 plentiful on the shores of creeks, and frequent on 

 the highlands of Wales and Scotland. Will any 

 one who has an opportunity of observing it give 

 some information as to its habits of growth? The 

 authorities differ. It was once cultivated, and 

 Miller, in his " Gardener's Dictionary," says it is an 

 annual, because, when sown in July, the proper 

 season, it completes its growth by July following; 



a reason not quite satisfactory. Loudon, another 

 gardener, describes it as biennial. Withering, the 

 same. Hooker, in his " British Elora," 4th edit., 

 1S38, marks it annual, in common with all the 

 sister plants except C. armoracia. Bhind, in his 

 "Vegetable Kingdom," says it is perennial. My 

 experience is limited to one specimen of C. offici- 

 nalis found, with others, on a dry bank (to which 

 the plant seems confined in that neighbourhood), 

 near the town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, 

 and removed in September to a garden in another 

 county, where it flowered strongly two years, and 

 had a perennial character, throwing up several 

 flowering stems. It perished in the drought of last 

 summer. I am led to think that Bhind is right. 

 It is bold to challenge the authority of such a book 

 as Hooker' s " British Elora," but itself furnishes 

 strong evidence that an error has crept into it. The 

 species named Greenlaiulica, which Hooker suspects 

 to be only a variety of C. officinalis, and which Miller, 

 under the name of Welsh Scorpion grass, describes 

 as biennial, is marked annual in the "British 

 Elora ;" but it is highly improbable that an annual 

 plant should be able to maintain itself on the edge 

 of the Arctic Circle, among the dwarf willow and 

 birch, as its name implies, and it is known to do. 

 The plant is interesting, but fallen into general 

 disuse, both as a salad and a medicine ; though 

 Loudon says it forms, mixed with orange-juice, an 

 ingredient in the popular remedy called " Spring 

 Waters." C. armoracia, the horse-radish, a sister- 

 plant, does not seem at all likely to be so much 



neglected. — S. S. 



Monograph of Thuja.— I ask permission to cor- 

 rect a typographical error in my recently published 

 Monograph of the Coniferous Genus Thuja {Linn.), 

 and of the North American species of the genus Le- 

 bocedrus (Encll.) (Transactions of the Botanical 

 Society of Edinburgh, vol. ix. pp. 35S-378). The 

 parallel columns containing the characters of the 

 genera on p. 363 ought to be transposed, and the 

 superfluous "the," last word 15th line from the 

 foot of p. 3G2, deleted. The error was made after 

 the paper passed from my hands ; and though I 

 have corrected it in a number of separate copies, 

 and the context and preceding and succeeding 

 statements make it at once self-evident, yet the 

 memoir may pass into the hands of some who have 

 not seen these corrections. — Robert Brown. 



Elotvering of Whin in December.— When 

 strolling along the southern slope of the Ochil Hills, 

 near the village of Blairlogie, on Christmas morn, 

 I was much surprised and pleased to find the top- 

 most sprigs of the whin clustered with its yellow- 

 flowers. The stony slopes of the hill reflect the 

 sun, while the mountains shelter from the N. andE. 

 wind, so that, on a fine day in December, you have 

 the temperature of April.— Wm. Hacldon. 



