Proceedm^s of the Botanical Society. 201 



the garden of Lucullus, so often referred to, ought not to be re- 

 garded as a specimen either of the art or the taste of his time, as it 

 was censured by his own contemporaries, Cicero and Varro ; the lat- 

 ter expressly stating " Hortos Lttculli non Jioribvs frudihusque sed 

 tabulis fuisse insignes*' He also shewed, on the authority of Ho- 

 race, Martial, and Pliny, that the citizens of Rome used to culti- 

 vate plants on the balconies of their houses, and to rear flowers in 

 boxes and in flower-pots, which were called " korti imaginarii /* 

 and that it is not likely the rich would do this merely to procure 

 materials for their votive ofi^erings, or to supply the ornaments for 

 their entertainments, but that a taste for the cultivation of flowers 

 as objects of amusement must also have prevailed. 



March 8 — Dr Balfour, V. P. in the Chair The following 



members were elected : — Non-Resident — the Honourable Louisa 

 Anne Neville of Audley End, near Saff^ron Walden. Foreign — 

 M. A. Fischer, Basle ; the Reverend Louis Leresch, St Cierge, sur 

 Moudon ; M. Luhler, Wirtemberg ; M. Otto Wilh. Sender, Kiel, 

 Holstein. Specimens were presented from eleven members of the 

 Society, received since 8th February. Letters were read from Dr 

 Von Martins and Professor Ledebour on their election as honorary 

 members. 



Dr Graham read the continuation of his observations on the 



plants collected in Scotland in 1837 by Dr M'Nab ErythrcBa lit" 



toralis. Dr Graham thinks it doubtful whether there is more than 

 one British species of JErytlircea ; and if the present is to be con- 

 sidered distinct, that its only character would seem to rest on the 

 narrow linear segments of the five-partite calyx, equal in length to 

 the tube of the corolla. Hah, Brodick, Arran. — Lathyrtis maritimuSf 

 is apparently the plant of the North of Europe, of Canada, and of 

 the United States as far south as Boston, and may be easily distin- 

 guished from L. pisiformis of Ledebour, or the figure of Gmelin 

 quoted by him, and in Hooker's British Flora, by the winged stem 

 and the shape of the stipules. The variety which Dr Graham con- 

 siders to be the type of the species is distinguished by its compact 

 robust growth, and by the common petioles being much arched back- 

 wards ; whereas the present plant is of a slender somewhat strag- 

 gling habit, not from growing in wooded ground, but probably from 

 being the inhabitant of the less genial climate to which the species 

 is extended. It appears not to diff^er from Lathyrus venosus of 

 American botanists. Hah, sands on the shore at Barra Firth, 

 Unst, Shetland, where Dr Edmonstone had observed it for several 

 years. — Ervum tetraspermunif and Allium arenarium. Hah. near 



