186 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Aug. 1, 1S70. 



BOTANY. 



Holly in full Berry in July. — In the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of the Macduff Railway 

 Station there is now a tree full of berries, bright 

 scarlet as at Christmas. On other trees a few have 

 been observed till lately, but on the one indicated 

 they are still in all their pristine beauty. Is such 

 an occurrence common, or how is it to be accounted 

 for?— J. D. 



Cytisus Adaml— Two fine specimens— the first 

 I had seen, and which not a little astonished me — ■ 

 of this tree were in profuse flower this season in the 

 Earl of Fife's policies at Duff House. Some of the 

 large branches bore yellow flowers, and the branch- 

 lets purple, and vice versa; but, so far as I observed, 

 no one large branch bore the same flowers through- 

 out. Does not this look like hybridization rather 

 than grafting ? The effect produced by the variety 

 and blending of the colours was strikingly beautiful. 

 Can any of your readers say whether the plant comes 

 true from the seed ?—J. D. 



Andkomeda polifolia (L.) in Ireland.— In 

 the Cybele Hibernicd there is some confusion as to 

 the distribution of this plant. On p. xliv, " Distri- 

 bution in the Districts," it is stated to occur in 1, 

 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12. On p. 181, under the heading 

 " Districts," we find 1, 3, 4, 5 (*. e. in four only of 

 the twelve districts) ; whereas in the subsequent 

 record of habitats, we have localities assigned in all 

 the districts given on p. xliv, omitting 10. Nor 

 does the confusion end here ; for all the habitats 

 entered under district 3 ought to be recorded under 

 district 7, as the places named are all in King's 

 County, and not Queen's County. We have then 

 authority given for the districts on p. xliv, omitting 

 3 and 10. I myself found it in some plenty in June, 

 1861, on the Bog of Allen, King's County, near my 

 station for Saxifraga Hirculus (L.) ; but had some 

 doubt about it, in consequence of its occurrence in 

 Ireland not being noted in Bentham's Handbook 

 (first edition). A reference to Professor Harvey, of 

 Dublin, however, proved that my diagnosis was 

 correct— B. T., M.A. 



Silvbum Marianuji (Gcert.) near Olney.— At 

 the end of chapter xv. of Hugh Miller's " First Im- 

 pressions of England and its People," whilst giving 

 graphic details of Olney and its vicinity, he makes 

 the old woman, his guide, remark: — "I have just 

 been looking for a kind of thistle that used to grow 

 here, but the farmer has, I find, weeded it all out — 

 that he (Cowper) made many fine pictures of. 1 

 have seen one of them with Lady Hesketh, that her 

 ladyship thought very precious. The thistle was a 

 pretty thistle, and I am sorry they are all gone. 

 It had a deep red flower set round with long thorns, 

 and the green of the leaves was crossed with bright 

 white streaks." This Hugh Miller infers to have 



been the "Wild Thistle." I wish to know if the plant 

 has returned to this habitat near Weston Under- 

 wood of late years. I did not come across any sign 

 of it whilst botanizing there in Easter week of the 

 present year. — B. T., M.A. 



Buxbaum's Speedwell {Veronica Buxbaumii). — 

 It is now near a quarter of a century since we took 

 a pilgrimage on the " Surrey side o' th' water," to 

 a lane somewhere within our then botanical range 

 of Battersea and] Kennington Commons, our object 

 being the then rare Buxbaum's Speedwell. We 

 were successful in our search, having found a few 

 plants, which delighted us very much on account of 

 the conspicuous blue flowers of the species when 

 compared with its congener, V. agrestis. We made 

 a note of the fact, but dared not to catalogue it as 

 a British plant, as Sir J. E. Smith had not admitted 

 it into hi3 English Flora. Since then it has become 

 so common an agrarian weed, that it is, at least, ad- 

 mitted as fairly naturalized, and, indeed, seems to 

 have as much right to be considered a native as the 

 other agrarian forms of the genus. In the new 

 edition of " English Botany," by Professor Syme, 

 will be found an exquisite drawing of this plant, 

 fig.DCCCCLXXIII. (we wish they had put English 

 numerals), and we have before us specimens so fine 

 that they might have sat for the portrait referred 

 to. It is all over the arable parts of our farm, 

 situate on the oolites, and one year a fifty-acre field 

 was absolutely covered with it. Indeed, with us it 

 seems to have usurped the position of the A. agrestis, 

 and to divide occupancy with the V. hedercefolia, the 

 Buxbaums and Ivy-leaved Speedwell being very 

 abundant, but not so the procumbent form, which 

 we have in other localities observed to be so com- 

 mon. A counterpart to this note may be pointed 

 out as having occurred in the Cheltenham district. 

 Some thirty years ago we used to find the pretty 

 Marsh Speedwell {F. sciitellata) " in a marshy bit 

 of ground on the eastern border of Uckiugton field ;" 

 but now this wide field has been enclosed, the marsh 

 drained, and we fear, that this plant, like some others, 

 has at least been lost to an accustomed locality; and 

 so it is, that while intercourse with foreign countries 

 brings us new forms in our imported agricultural 

 seeds, the " march of improvement " is elbowing 

 out many an aboriginal.—/. B., Bradford Abbas. 



Botanical Analysis.— Dr. Griffiths's " System 

 of Botanical Analysis," applied to British natural 

 orders of plants, is likely to prove a very useful 

 little manual for beginners. The tabular form is 

 adopted, and the orders are arranged according to 

 an artificial scheme. There are, of course, many 

 objections to artificial synopses, as one or two 

 characters by themselves do not give an accurate 

 idea of order or genus, yet such keys may prove 

 valuable helps, if supplemented by close practical 

 study of differences and affinities. 



