474 Miscellaneous. 



ticed the evident depression of the land along the eastern coast of 

 Scotland, from which he inferred that the level of the German Ocean 

 must have been greatly altered, and was inclined to believe that the 

 similarity of the Floras of this country and of Norway and Sweden 

 might be accounted for by supposing that these countries were at 

 one time united to Britain. 



2. Read extracts from a letter from Dr. W. H. Campbell of 

 Demerara, giving an account of an excursion up the Essequibo river, 

 in the course of which he saw Victoria regia in a lake or lagoon, 

 about half a day's journey above the Itabally Rapids. He described 

 the petioles as densely covered with prickles, and varying from fif- 

 teen to twenty feet in length, the leaf itself being five to six feet 

 long. He also procured specimens of the root and bark of the plant 

 which yields the Hiarry poison, which he describes as a huge bush- 

 rope or climber. Unfortunately neither the Victoria nor Hiarry plant 

 was in flower. The latter is being analysed by Dr. Sheer, the agri- 

 cultural chemist at Demerara. 



Dr. Douglas Maclagan stated that he had already made an ana- 

 lysis of the Hiarry root, and had detected a peculiar volatile acid to 

 which he believed the poisonous properties of the plant were due. 



3. Read a supplement to a " Synopsis of the British Rubi," by 

 Charles C. Babington, M.A. (see Annals, vol. xix. p. 17.) 



Specimens of Trichenium, collected by Dr. Learmouth in Australia, 

 were exhibited, and the peculiar structure of the calycine hairs 

 shown under the microscope. 



In the report of the last meeting of the Society, Thorea ramosis- 

 sima was inadvertently stated to have been found at Studley, York- 

 shire ; and Hormospora mutabilis in the Thames, near Walton. It 

 should have been the reverse. 



At this meeting the election of office-bearers for the ensuing year 

 took place, when Dr. R. K. Greville was elected President, and Dr. 

 Archd. Inglis, Sir William Jardine, Bart., Professor Balfour, and 

 Rev. Dr. Fleming, Vice-presidents. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

 Description of an Agaric new to the British Flora. 

 Agaricus caperatus. — Pileus convex, orbiculate, obtusely umbo- 

 nate, even, very dry, of a uniform gall-stone yellow, usually paler 

 about the top, covered with a mealy powder of the same colour, 

 which in some places is gathered into an imperfect scaliness, the 

 margin inflected, entire or more or less sinuated : veil as thick as 

 writing-paper, persistent, stretched between the margin and stem, 

 to which it is closely attached, thickly covered with the same powder 

 as the pileus, but more distinctly squamulose : flesh thick, solid 

 and firm, white, not changing colour, mild and insipid in taste. Gills 

 numerous, adnate, four in a set, dry and smooth, sienna-yellow, 

 juiceless : sporules elliptical, very light honey-yellow. Stem cylin- 

 drical, as thick as a man's thumb, erect and solid, the root rounded 

 but not bulbous, whitened with the mycelia, the shaft of the same 



