Miscellaneous. 153 



says that these, as well as others which he arranges among the 

 Characece and Cryptogams, and some of which he has not determined 

 the characters, are all generically distinct from any British plant, and 

 belong to those of a warmer climate. When the sandstone is freshly 

 broken the epidermis of the fossil frequently peels off, leaving the 

 impression of only the fibres. These remains often form masses of 

 some thickness ; and, from their state of preservation, must, the 

 author states, have been deposited tranquilly beneath the waters. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



PLUMATELLA REPENS. 



Having this day, in the vicinity of Cheshunt, in a pond whose waters 

 are perennial, met with several fine specimens of the above zoo- 

 phyte, and these being in a living state, I had an excellent opportunity 

 of comparing its polype with that of Alcyonidium stagnorum, which I 

 procured in a pond on Acton Green, Middlesex, some time since and 

 then examined, and I find that the polypi agree in all respects in the 

 two species, the tentacula being arranged upon a crescentic disc in 

 both, and their number corresponding, there being usually about fifty, 

 seldom more than sixty, or less than forty in each polype. The ova 

 too are of the same form in both species. 



Plumatella repens and Alcyonella stagnorum ought therefore with- 

 out doubt to be regarded as generically identical, for the difference in 

 the mode of branching can scarcely be regarded as affording a cha- 

 racter of generic importance : whether they are so specifically or not, 

 has yet to be ascertained, I believe, but I am strongly inclined to 

 think that they are not. 



Whenever I have found Alcyonidium stagnorum, I have always no- 

 ticed that it has been attached to pieces of stick, the stems of vege- 

 tables, or to some substance which would not necessarily perish and 

 decay in a few weeks, and that some of the specimens were of such 

 a size, being as large as the closed hand, as to lead to the suppo- 

 sition that many months must have elapsed before they could have 

 attained such a development ; whereas all the specimens of Plumatella 

 repens which I have met with were attached to the decayed leaves of 

 Typha latifolia, which in a few short weeks would, as a matter of ne- 

 cessity, be utterly decomposed, involving the zoophyte upon it in its 

 own destruction. In some of my specimens the polypidom has 

 crept over the leaves for several inches, and in all of them without 

 either raising itself from the surface of attachment or exhibiting 

 aggregations of cells, as it might be supposed that it would do were 

 it merely a condition of Alcyonidium stagnorum. 



September 8th, 1842. A. H. Hassall. 



NOTES ON THE USES OF SOME MADAGASCAR PLANTS TO THE NATIVES. 



On looking, in the process of arrangement, through some plants 

 from Madagascar, forwarded to the Herbarium of the Army Medical 



