HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



67 



explored each individual flower with its proboscis. 

 "While I was watching it, the butterfly touched and 

 partly walked over what looked like a slightly faded 

 or crumpled flower about the middle of the cluster. 

 This turned out to be a spider, which instantly 

 seized the butterfly, throwing forward its front legs 

 somewhat after the fashion of a mantis. In this 

 spider the effect of the little depressions on the limb 

 of the corolla was given by some depressed lines on 

 the back of its smooth white abdomen." This paper 

 will repay perusal. 



Land and Fresh-water Moi.lusca of the 

 Middi.esbro' District. — In addition to the species 

 and varieties already recorded (S.-G. vol.xix. pp. 163, 

 185, and vol. xx. p. 91) for the twelve miles' radius, 

 having Middlesbrough for its extremity, I have 

 pleasure in adding the following: — Planorbis 

 nilidus, and var. albida ; Lim/nra peregra, var. 

 Jabiosa ; Arion atef, and vars. maiginata and rufa ; 

 Avion liortensis, and vars. grisea and fasciata ; 

 Limax maximus, var. cellar ia, and a peculiarly 

 marked vaiiety, at present under Mr. W. D. 

 Roebuck's hands. Mr. Roebuck believes it to be an 

 undescribed variety, but its peculiar coloration and 

 markings would seem to entitle it to varietal rank, 

 and he has proposed to name the variety pallida- 

 dorsalis ; Limax flavus, and vars. colubrina and 

 ■virescens ; Umax agrestis, and its vars. Irish's and 

 sylvatica. — Baker Hudson. 



Sinel's Zoological Laboratory. — At Jersey 

 visitors with natural history tastes who find their 

 way to the Channel Islands this summer, will be 

 immensely interested by visiting the above Institution. 

 Mr. Sinel has enthusiastically worked the neighbour- 

 ing seas for marine spoils of all kinds, and we have 

 repeatedly drawn attention to the slides he has issued 

 illustrative of the embryological development of the 

 Crustacea, &c. The sea-bed of the Channel Islands 

 is a wonderful treasure-house to marine zoologists, 

 and all those who propose to trawl, or in other ways 

 ■to explore, would do well to visit Mr. Sinel's 

 laboratory first, and there get all the information 

 •they can. The geology, mineralogy, natural history 

 of the islands will be also found deeply interesting. 



BOTANY. 



White Peziza. — While searching for the pretty 

 scarlet pezizas in a locality where I have frequently 

 found them, I recently discovered one, pure white in 

 colour. It is about half an inch across the cup, and 

 is attached to a piece of stick as the scarlet ones always 

 are. — //. Miller, jun., Ipswich. 



Notes ox Fasciation, &c— The respect which 

 I entertain for every original observer of plants will 

 .not allow me to contradict your correspondent who 



ascribes to the economy of nature phenomena which 

 botanists in general refer to another cause ; i.e. the 

 cohesion of two flower-stalks, by which they become, 

 or at least seem to be, one. This is commonly called 

 fasciation, which has been the subject of several 

 interesting papers in Science-Gossip. Fasciated 

 stems do sometimes show such peculiarities of growth 

 as to suggest problems to the scientific mind that are 

 rather metaphysical than practical, but, in the case of 

 primrose flowers on a flattened stalk, there is no 

 difficulty in recognising the union of two pedicels, 

 each bearing a flower on its top. Such cases happen 

 frequently in polyanthuses, which are the subjects of 

 cultivation. Sometimes the two flowers are distinct, 

 at other times they are blended into one, having ten 

 teeth to the calyx, as many lobes of the corolla, and 

 a similar number of stamens. In other cases a calyx 

 with ten teeth encloses two corollas, each with its 

 normal five stamens in its tube. In the dahlias 

 mentioned by your correspondent, the case is very 

 different. As what is called the flower of a dahlia is 

 in fact a capitulum or head of flowers, the stalk 

 which bears it is not a simple pedicel, but a peduncle 

 or flowering stem. The two flower-heads, if really 

 collateral, must therefore be at the summits of two 

 united stems. Whether or not two such stems are 

 ever derived from the splitting of one, is a question 

 as to which botanists are not quite agreed, but the 

 prevalent opinion is in favour of the theory that two 

 or more stems first grow together, so that fasciated 

 stems, however apparently simple, are really com- 

 pound before their component parts diverge above, or 

 if they remain united, produce at the top more than 

 one head of flowers. I have seen in the dandelion a 

 phenomenon like that recorded in the dahlia. I have 

 often had wallflowers with fasciated stems with two 

 racemes of flowers at the top. On one occasion, 

 saving some seeds from such a flowering stem, I sowed 

 them, and had about twenty young plants with more 

 than two cotyledons on each. Most of these plants 

 afterwards produced fasciated stems, from which we 

 may conclude that fasciation has its origin in the 

 embryo. Further observations are, however, most 

 desirable. — Joint Gibbs. 



"Fire-Weed." — America has the reputation of 

 doing things on a large scale. A correspondent of 

 the American "Botanical Gazette " gives a graphic 

 account of a brilliant sight he witnessed in Maine last 

 summer. A large tract of some 4000 acres had been 

 cleared by a fire which broke out, and lasted for two 

 weeks. Three weeks after the fire, vegetation re- 

 appeared ; and in August, "our road passing through 

 this tract for four miles, the whole region, as far as 

 the eye could reach, over hill and valley, ridge and 

 interval, was one mass of colour from the ' fire-weed ' 

 (Epilobium angustifolium). It looked, as one of the 

 party said, as if the earth were covered four or five 

 feet deep with a fall of pink snow." 



