70 Linnccan Society. 



Chair. Had not the whole responsibility fallen on myself, 1 should 

 have hesitated, or perhaps altogether forborne to bring before you 

 Opinions, several of which I know are litile in accordance with those 

 of some of the most distinguished members of our association. 



LINNJEAN SOCIETY. 



June 3. — A Paper was read entitled, " On certain Deviations from 

 the ordinary Structure in Telopea speciocissima. By Mr. David Don, 

 Libr. L.S." 



In a large proportion of the Protectees, Mr. Don observes, includ- 

 ing Telopea, the filaments are firmly united along their whole length 

 to the inner surface of the foliola of the perianthium, which apparently 

 bearing the anthers in their concave apices, look as if they constituted 

 but a single series of organs, performing the double functions of sta- 

 mina and perianthium. In a spike, however, of Telopea speciocissima , 

 which blossomed at Mr. Knight's Nursery, in May 1833, Mr. Don 

 found a number of flowers in which some of the filaments were en- 

 tirely free, and with the anthers more developed than are met with in 

 the ordinary state j a circumstance which may have arisen from the 

 oblique direction given to the stamen in a very early stage of the 

 flower, (at which, in ordinary cases, the cohesion most probably takes 

 place,) and thus, in this instance, preventing cohesion from taking 

 place between it and the opposite leaf of the perianthium. The pis- 

 tillum of this plant presents a beautiful example of adaptation. As the 

 leaves of the perianthium approximate closely at the base,— being 

 there so narrow as to have prevented the development of the ova- 

 rium, had it been sessile, — we find it elevated on a stalk, so as to place 

 it in the widest part of the tube formed by the leaves of the perianthium, 

 and, at the same time, to raise the stigma on a level with the anthers, 

 the ovarium appearing as if situated in the middle of the style. After 

 some further remarks on the structure of the pistillum, the author con- 

 cludes by showing that the figure of Telopea speciocissima in * Exotic 

 Botany' is very faulty, the position of the flowers with respect to the 

 axis of the spike being entirely reversed. 



An addendum to Mr. Thompson's paper was also read, containing 

 a notice of two specimens of the Noddy, Sterna stolida, Linn., 

 which were shot, a few years since, at sea, between the Tusker 

 lighthouse off the coast of Wexford, and the Bay of Dublin. Both 

 are in mature plumage ; one of them is now preserved in the collec- 

 tion of Thomas W. Warren, Esq., of Dublin, and the other in that of 

 W. Massey, Esq., of the Pigeon House, in the same city, who ori- 

 ginally received both specimens from the captain of the vessel on 

 board which they had been killed. 



June 17. — A Paper was read "On the Female Flower and Fruit 

 of Rafflesia, with observations on its affinities, and on the structure 

 of Hydnora" By Robert Brown, Esq., V.P.L.S. 



The author's principal object in this paper is to complete his ac- 

 count of Rafflesia Amoldi, the male flower of which he described in 

 a former communication, published in the 1 3th volume of the Society's 



