Localities of some rare British Plants. 631 



has suggested to us, prove a source of information to the re- 

 searcher with the microscope : — 



Pimelea hispida Lindley, in the Botanical Register, 1. 1578., 

 has the calyx closed, at the base densely, at the apex spar- 

 ingly, with long stiffish hairs. " These hairs are long, unin- 

 terrupted, very transparent tubes, with a considerable number 

 of minute particles within their cavity : they are, doubtless, 

 extremely well adapted to show distinctly that curious motion 

 in the fluids of plants which forms so singular a species of 

 circulation in their system, and which seems to be universal 

 in hairs, so long as they are alive." [Lindley, in Bot. Reg., 

 t. 1578.] 



Silica in Plants. (I. 67. ; V. 1 78, 179.)— Next to the bamboos 

 the sugar-cane probably yields a larger portion of silex than 

 the other Gramina. Under the furnaces, in which the stalks of 

 the cane, bruised and deprived of their juices, are burnt as fuel, 

 in the manufacture of sugar, large greyish masses of silex are 

 always to be found, in quantities that are astonishing, though 

 the exterior enamelled surface of the cane is of great hardness. 

 The small European Gramina yield this substance in very 

 small proportions ; though I was once shown by Professor 

 Buckland, a large flat cake which had been detected among 

 the ashes of a hayrick destroyed by the flames. — Lansdoison 

 Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 1830. 



[We remember being told that a considerable mass of 

 flinty matter was found in the ashes of a hayrick consumed by 

 fire, not many years ago, in the neighbourhood of London : 

 we think that it was on Chalk Farm. 



Since the preceding paragraph was put in type, several 

 hayricks have been burnt in some place beside the road from 

 London to Greenwich : the event occurred early in August, 

 1835. In the ashes of the hayricks a stony matter was mingled, 

 and the substance formed by the two resembles tufa.] 



Localities of certain rarer Species of British Plants, addi- 

 tional to the Localities of them in Hooker's " British Flora," the 

 third Edition ; with some slight Corrections and Additions to the 

 Descriptions of some of the Species described in that Edition. — 

 Valeriana rubra [Centranthus Dec. ruber Dec.~\ has the 

 flowers sometimes white, as near St. Heliers, Jersey, 1833. — 

 Cyperus longus is used extensively, in Jersey and Guernsey, 

 for ropes, mats, &c. — Eriophorum pubescens: plentiful in 

 Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire. — Polypogon mons- 

 peliensis I did not gather in Guernsey : the specimen I sent 

 to Dr. Hooker was given to me by Mr. Lukis, of that island, 

 in 1833. As that gentleman informed me that he was about to 

 publish an account of the plants of Guernsey, I did not send 



