1S6 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Aug. 1, 1S69. 



BOTANY. 



Abnormal Eruit of the Sloe.— On the 22nd ! 

 ult. I received a note from Mr. T. Southwell, of 

 Norwich, enclosing a curiously malformed specimen | 

 of the Sloe, and asking my opinion as to the cause 

 of its singular malformation, whether caused by 

 insects or otherwise. The results of my examination 

 were thus stated in a note to Mr. S. :— " In one only 

 of the abnormal drupes did I find any trace of insect 

 life, and in that case I could not in any way attri- 

 bute the change of form to its agency. It appears 

 to me we must look to some other source than the 

 insect world for the cause of this strange malforma- 

 tion. I noticed that in every case of abnormal 

 growth the epicarp and sarcocarp were fully de- 

 veloped, though apparently diseased, while the endo- 

 carp on the contrary, with its contained seed, was 

 represented by a mere speck of brown, withered, 

 membranous tissue. In one abnormal drupe, larger 

 and rounder than the rest, the endocarp was some- 

 what more fully developed and was evidently still 

 growing." On the 2nd iust. I received another letter 

 from Mr. Southwell (which 1 quote with his per- 

 mission), in which he informed me that a friend of 

 his had sent a specimen to Kew for Dr. Hooker. 

 He is from home, but the keeper of the herbarium, 

 Mr. Oliver, replied. He believed the malformation 

 was due to a fungus, and that Mr. Berkeley had 

 sent a note on the subject to the Gardener's 

 Chronicle. The specimen sent he would not pull 

 to pieces, but preserve for the Kew museum. By 

 the next post he wrote to say Mr. Berkeley's note 

 was to be found in the Gardener' 's Chronicle of 

 June the 19th ; upon referring to which I found 

 a letter signed Armagh, describing the bladder 

 plums which the plum-trees in that neighbourhood 

 were producing, and in the Scientific Committee's 

 report of the Boyal Society the following note : — 

 " Dr. Thomson exhibited specimens of bladder plums 

 from a hedge in Northamptonshire. The fruit here 

 presents none of its ordinary succulent characters ; 

 the stone is not formed, and the ovule is more or 

 less atrophied. Sometimes a second carpel is pro- 

 duced. The phenomenon in question is due to a 

 parasitic fungus {Ascomyces deformans)." In India a 

 particular form of bird cherry is pretty constantly 

 affected in this way, and the plant has in conse- 

 quence received the name of Cerasus cormda. It 

 thus appears that this singular malformation is the 

 result of fungoid growth upon it, and that the same 

 malformation occurs in other nearly allied stone 

 fruits. Perhaps the readers of SciEXCE-Gossir can 

 give further information on this interesting subject, 

 as to its distribution and former appearauces in this 

 country, and as to the influences which favour its 

 production. — John Ileptcorth, SI. Mary's Vale, 

 Chatham. 



Abnormal Wallflower. — "H. O. S." sends 

 flowers of the singular malformation of the Wall- 

 flower, called by De Candolle the variety Gynanthe- 

 rus. In truth what under ordinary circumstances 

 are stamens, are here represented by carpels ; so 

 that there is a double set of ovaries, the normal one 

 encircled by an adventitious one, consisting of the 

 transformed stamens. The petals at the same time 

 are smaller than usual. See Masters' "Vegetable 

 Teratology," p. 305, where a description and figures 

 of this change are given. 



The Shamrock (pp. 6G, 91, 13S, 1G2, 1G6, 167). 

 —Mrs. Watney will find the arguments in favour of 

 the Oxalis Acetosella being the true Shamrock, in 

 my paper on "The Woodsorrel" in Science-Gossip 

 for 186S, p. 53. The question is one which will 

 probably never be settled, as far as the plant used 

 by St. Patrick is concerned ; but it seems evident 

 that, at the present day, Trifolium minus is the 

 chosen Shamrock. In addition to the counties named 

 by Mrs. Brenan, I may mention Carlow, Limerick, 

 and Kerry, in which this plant is pointed out as the 

 national emblem. In Cybele Hibernica, Edward 

 Lhwyd is quoted as writing in 1699, " Their Sham- 

 rug is our common clover," and in the same work, 

 " Threlkeld, the earliest writer on the wild plants 

 of Ireland," is referred to as stating that T. repens 

 " is the plant worn by the people in their hats on 

 St. Patrick's day." The purple-spotted T. repens 

 is, I fancy, only looked on as the real Shamrock by 

 those who have not troubled to think about the pro- 

 bability (or improbability) of a cultivated variation 

 unknown in a wild state (?), having been found in 

 the time of St. Patrick, but having since disappeared. 

 — James Britten. 



Habenaria chlorantha (bifolia), p. 162. — I 

 have gathered specimens this June, with the pollen- 

 masses in the position of those referred to by " M. 

 C," but my conclusion as to how they came there 

 was different from his, although I am by no means 

 sure that I am right. My impression is that the pollen- 

 clubs, with the disc to which they are fixed, are, as 

 usual, pulled forcibly from their original position 

 by the moth which is the instrument by means of 

 which the flowers are fertilized ; that in going from 

 blossom to blossom of the long spike— and the 

 spikes of my examples were remarkably fine— before 

 the viscid matter on the disc has had time to soli- 

 dify, the pollen-masses are brushed off, or become 

 otherwise detached, and falling on the projecting lip 

 or other part of the blossom, adhere so firmly by 

 means of this natural cement, that they appear to have 

 grown there. Perhaps some reader who has made 

 a specialty of Orchids will come forward and correct 

 me, if wrong, or confirm me, if right. Not having 

 made a study of the Orchids, my suggestion is made 

 rather in the hope of eliciting additional information 

 than in the idea that it is correct. — James Britten. 



