280 



HARDVVICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Dec. 1, 1869. 



BOTANY. 



Veronica buxbaumii.— Permit me to add two 

 more stations for the above plant ; viz., at Colches- 

 ter, where it occurs very frequently in the fields, 

 and more particularly by the roadsides ; and also on 

 Barnes Common, and in the surrounding fields. — 

 G. T. N. 



Tree Oxalis. — In" the greenhouse of a banker 

 of this town there is now to be seen a remarkable 

 vegetable phenomenon. It consists of a plant of 

 Oxalis, of the pretty pink variety so well known to 

 gardeners. But the peculiarity of the specimen is 

 that the leaves and flowers are elevated on a com- 

 pact woody stem, rising nearly a foot from the pot 

 in which it grows, and (as far as I can guess) 

 averaging about six inches in circumference: the 

 whole presenting an appearance somewhat similar 

 to that of a South American tree-fern. The plant 

 has been in the same pot for about six years, and 

 the stem is gradually increasing in bulk. Such an 

 instance of accretion is quite without parallel in my 

 experience ; and, as your readers are not likely to 

 have an opportunity of seeing the plant referred to, 

 I think it desirable to make known the existence of 

 such a phenomenon through the medium of Science- 

 Gossip. — Charles F, Thormcill, Warwick. 



Curious Variety of Plantago coronopus 

 (L.). — I inclose a drawing of a very curious and, so 

 far as I can judge from my own observations, per- 

 manent variety or monstrosity of the common 

 Buck's Horn Plantain. It was gathered in May, 

 1868, near Wallasey, in Cheshire, growing in very 

 sandy soil, along the roadside ; and again this 

 summer (1S69) it appeared in plenty at the same 

 place. Every plant for ten yards or so presented 

 this curious appearance. The bracts are wonder- 

 fully enlarged, what would be the lower ones being 

 the largest, the upper the smallest ; thus presenting 

 the appearance of a green composite flower. In a 

 word, they have become regular leaves, with acu- 

 minate pinnatifld lobes ; the flowers are somewhat 

 fewer, and far between, and larger than in normal 

 specimens. It is but fair to state that one spike in, 

 on the average, every twenty, though very much 

 enlarged and coarse in its manner of growth, has 

 not its bracts quite so prominent, thereby proving 

 it to be more a permanent monstrosity than a 

 variety. If it be entered as either of these, the 

 name P. coronopus, var. patirurformis, will aptly 

 express the general flattened appearance of the 

 flower spike. — James Cosmo Melvill, B.A, 



Holly. — Your printer has made me appear to 

 fall into Mrs. Watney's error of spelling the Welsh 

 word "Helig" with two l's, in my note last month 

 respecting the derivation of "holly;" whereas I only 

 spelled it with one, except the first time I used the 

 word when quoting Mrs. Watney. A Welsh cor- 

 respondent, to whom I have since written upon the 



subject, suggested — what I did not think of — that 

 the peculiar sound which double I has in the Welsh 

 language, would at once remove any likeness of 

 sound between "holly" and "hellig," as Mrs. Wat- 

 ney spells it. — Robert Holland. 



Brambles in Hedges. — Good farmers, now, 

 take every possible pains to keep their hedges clean; 

 and they weed up the brambles, which not only look 

 untidy, but cause some injury by choking the haw- 

 thorn plants ; but our forefathers appear to have 

 not only tolerated blackberries in their hedges, but 

 even to have sown them to improve the fence. 

 Tusser, who lived in the sixteenth century, says : — 



" Go plough up, or delve up, advised with skill, 

 The breadth of a ridge, and in length as ye will j 

 When speedy quickset, for a fence ye will draw, 

 To sow in the seed of the bramble and haw." 



It is no wonder, then, that we find blackberries so 

 troublesome in old hedges at the present day. Many 

 of our hedges have been in existence from Tusser's 

 time, and before, and there is little doubt that the 

 blackberries in them can boast as old an ancestry as 

 the thorns themselves. Nettles are, if anything, 

 more difficult to eradicate than blackberries. Tusser 

 gives a receipt for killing them ; he says :— 



" When plots full of nettles be noisome to eye, 

 Sow thereupon hemp-seed, and nettles will die." 



— Robert Holland. 



Orange - spotted Potentilla. — Among the 

 many discoveries of rare wild flowers made some 

 years ago by Mr. G. Don in various parts of Scot- 

 land, not one perhaps has received less confirmation 

 than that of Potentilla opaca, or, as it is sometimes 

 called, intermedia, said to have been found on the 

 Clova mountains. This plant has not been met 

 with by any botanist since Don's time. Potentilla 

 opaca is described by some as being distinguished 

 in One respect from its nearest relative, P. alpestris, 

 by having a bright orange spot at the base of its 

 petals, whereas the flower of alpestris is said to be 

 entirely yellow. Now on one of those stupendous 

 rocks at the head of Loch na Gat on the north side 

 of Ben Lawers, there is found a variety of alpestris, 

 having an orange spot exactly similar to that of 

 opaca. It would seem, then, that this orange spot 

 should never have been made a distinguishing mark 

 of opaca, or at least that the Ben Lawers plant is a 

 link between the two species, and therefore another 

 nut to crack for the splitters. But what I wish to 

 observe is, how strange it is that no notice has been 

 taken of this Ben Lawers variety by our botanical 

 books in general; and especially that there is no men- 

 tion of it whatever in that large one now being pub- 

 lished, and which is said by a great authority to be 

 exhaustive of the subject on which it is written. 

 Babington, I believe (but only in the last edition of 

 his Handbook), does mention this variety under the 

 name of maculata ; I am not aware that it has been 

 noticed by any other.— R. W. 



