102 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



LJl-ly 1, 1S69. 



BOTANY. 



Habenaria bifolia. — In two specimens that I 

 have gathered this year, there have been pollen- 

 masses growing out of the tip of the spur, on the 

 under side of the lip, and in one of them from the 

 centre and base of the back of the centre leaf of the 

 calyx, whilst in almost every blossom there was one 

 at the base of the column. They are irregularly egg- 

 shaped masses of pollen, the glands of the stalks 

 swelling into a bulb where they grow out of the 

 spur or lip. On examination with a microscope, I 

 found that with a fine needle I could draw tbe pol- 

 len-masses out, which lay loosely in the two-celled 

 anthers, which made me think at first that I had 

 shaken some out unawares, and they had adhered. 

 But on trying to move them, I found them firmly 

 fixed even after they had been a fortnight in my 

 press in paper changed every day. This spring I 

 have found unusual numbers of imperfect flowers 

 and uncommon varieties, as the peculiar variety of 

 Stellaria media mentioned in Hooker's "British 

 Flora" as having been found near Cork, by Mr. 

 James Drummond. — M. C, Kent. 



Polystichum aculeatum. — I have a dried frond 

 of the common Prickly Pern (P. aculeatum), which 

 has taken a very remarkable form. It grew in my 

 own garden, and had been but recently transplanted 

 from the woods; so that the change of soil and 

 situation probably exercised an influence upon its 

 growth. The lower half of this frond has all the v 

 characters of P. aculeatum, and differs in no way 

 from the rest of the fronds upon the plant ; but at 

 this point it abruptly changes, and the upper half 

 exactly resembles P. lonchitis, not only in general 

 form, having short undivided pinnae, but even in the 

 absence of brown scales upon the rachis. Whether 

 this frond shows that aculeatum and lonchitis are 

 permanent varieties of one species, as some botanists 

 think, I do not venture to say. The other half of 

 my frond way be only the variety that is known as 

 lonchitidioides, but I have compared it over and over 

 again with veritable lonchitis, and I can detect no 

 difference.— Robert Holland, in Quart. Mag. High 

 Wycombe Nat. Hist. Soc. 



Wolefia aerhiza. — To the localities named at 

 p. 138 for this little plant, the following, from the 

 last Report of the London Botanical Exchange Club, 

 may be added : — " A pond in a large meadow on 

 Apse Farm, near Sunbury Lock, between Walton- 

 on-Thames and Moulsey Hurst, Surrey; also in a 

 splash of water, very near the church, in the parish 

 of East Moulsey, a short half-mile from Hampton 

 Court station." — James Britten. 



Local Name of the Goosebeery. — Throughout 

 a great part of Lancashire — all the district around 

 Rochdale — the Gooseberry is always called " Fay- 



berry." You are asked to take "Fayberry pie," and 

 the iword is in constant use. A correspondent 

 writes to me that this word is an Anglo-Normanism, 

 being derived from " faye," or " faie." Our older 

 poets used the word " fay " for '' fairy." " Fay- 

 berry " therefore means " fairyberry." He further 

 remarks that our Lancashire men have retained the 

 word, but have lost all tradition about it ; but in 

 Ireland there is a tradition connecting the Goose- 

 berry with a fairy, the Leprahawn, who is re- 

 presented as pursuing his occupation seated on a 

 Gooseberry bush, but apparently no corresponding 

 name. It is remarkable that one other distant 

 county has supplied us with a similar name for the 

 Gooseberry, namely Norfolk, where it is called 

 " feaps," " feabs," or " fabes." I should be much 

 obliged to any correspondent who could tell us 

 something more about the doings of this Irish fairy, 

 and whether there is any Irish name for the Goose- 

 berry tree which would connect it with fairies, or 

 if any tradition yet exists in any part of England 

 which would account for the name " fayberry." — 

 Robert Holland. 



New Peziza. — At a meeting of the Linnean 

 Society, March 18, Mr. W. G. Smith exhibited fresh 

 specimens of a new British Peziza, P. (Discina) 

 macrocalyx, found by Mr. J. A. Clarke, of Street, 

 Somerset. 



Sctrpus parvulus. — Found last year "on mud 

 flats at the mouth of the river Avoca, Wicklow, 

 Ireland ; Mr. A. G. More and Mr. Charles Bailey. 

 In the sixth edition of [ the 'London Catalogue/ 

 Scirpus parvulus was placed in the list of excluded 

 species, as it was believed to be extiuct in the only 

 known British locality, namely, near Lymington, 

 Hants, where it was found by the Bev. G. E. Smith 

 about 1840; the discovery of this plant last summer, 

 therefore, on the east coast of Ireland, by Mr. A. 

 G. More, was a welcome surprise to British 

 botanists." — Report, London Bot. Ex. Club for 1S6S. 



Mistletoe. — I quite agree with Mrs. Watney, 

 that in spite of the customs of the Druids, the 

 Mistletoe is eminently a Christmas berry now-a- 

 days, and the owners of orchards where it grows 

 reap quite a harvest from it at the merry season. 

 It is almost unknown in the north as a native, but 

 it comes to us in truck-loads by rail from Hereford- 

 shire and Worcestershire, and its valued sprays are 

 put in the most conspicuous place in our Christmas 

 decorations. — Robert Holland. 



Wood - soerel, the true Shamrock. — I have 

 heard it asserted that the true Shamrock of the 

 Irish was the Oxalis Acetosella, our Wood-sorrel. It 

 is a much prettier plant than either of the trefoils 

 now said to be the Irish Shamrock, and one of the 

 old English names given to the Wood-sorrel was 

 Sour Trefoil. — Helen E. Watney. 



