634 



Greater Dodder. 



tinctness, as a Species, from A. arvensis. (III. 537. ; IV. 79. 

 277, 278. 466.; V. 493, 494.) — Professor Henslow sent to 

 me, in 1833, some seeds of ^nagallis caerulea collected at 

 Chapel Allerton, which I sowed in sandy loam, in four pots ; 

 but, to my great disappointment, no plants made their appear- 

 ance. Three of the pots being subsequently wanted for other 

 purposes, the soil was turned out, and one only remained 

 filled with soil, in which, to my astonishment, nine plants of 

 ^nagallis this year (1835) have made their appearance, all 

 with the blue corolla of ^nagallis caerulea. — W. A. Leighton. 

 Shrewsbury, August 8. 1835. 



[Had the seeds of A. caerulea been sown immediately after 

 they had been ripened, thus to parallel Nature's time of sow- 

 ing them, plants from them would have been produced in the 

 year following. It is known to botanical cultivators that the 

 seeds of several species of plants, after being artificially kept 

 out of the earth for a time, will, after being sown, lie long in 

 the earth before they vegetate ; some kinds a year or more. 

 The seeds of some of the Umbelliferae are in this case.] 



The Greater Dodder (Cuscuta europced). (V. 506, 507.) — 

 The plan mentioned, in V. 506, 507., " of cultivating the 

 dodder by cuttings, is new to me ; but I have cultivated it in 

 the Oxford Garden, for many years, by sowing the seeds 

 among common nettles ( C/rtica dioica) ; and, for some years 

 past, it has established itself on the Solidago virgaurea and 

 the Asperula odorata in the garden." [Extracted from a 

 Letter from Mr. William Baxter, Curator of the Botanic Gar- 

 den, Oxford; dated May 30. 1835.] 



Mr. Baxter has, since this date, observed the dodder to 

 grow upon the Achillea Millefolium, in the Oxford Botanic 

 Garden. He has sent us a specimen. It is the stem, chiefly, 

 into which the dodder has 

 rooted ; but the mid-rib of 

 the leaf also, we think, in one 

 instance, if not more. Of 

 species of plants which the 

 greater dodder has been 

 known to inhabit, several are 

 mentioned in the Encyclopce- 

 dia oj c Plants, p. 105. Among 

 them there are, additional 

 to those noted in V. 506., 

 " brambles, woody night- 

 shade [Solanum Dulcamara], 

 fern, hemp, clover, grass, 

 &c." The figure {fig. 68.) here repeated from the Encyclo- 

 paedia of Gardening had been copied from English Botany, 



