56 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



varieties. Access to the " Set of British Rubi " will much facilitate 

 the preparation of local floras. Local Natural History Societies 

 could scarcely do better than acquire one for the use of their 

 members, which may be done on communicating with the Rev. 

 E. F. Linton, Crymlyn, Bournemouth. — Ed. A. S. N. H. 



The Champion Potato. — The last issue of the " Annals of 

 Scottish Natural History" contained some very interesting notes 

 on Pistillody of the Stamens in the Champion Potato, by Professor 

 Trail ; and I am glad to be able to give some additional facts 

 regarding this variety. For many years I have experimented by 

 hybridising various kinds of potatoes with the object of rearing new 

 and improved varieties from them. The Champion possessing good 

 properties, I was anxious to see its offspring and to prove their value ; 

 but in vain I looked for plums on it every season from the time 

 when it was distributed up to 1887, in which year I found a few 

 solitary fruits. In the following summer I crossed a few of the 

 most completely developed blossoms with pollen from other good 

 sorts ; and I was rewarded with a few more plums, thus proving 

 that naturally fertilised seed may be found, although rarely to be 

 met with, and that well-formed ovaries may be made fruitful by 

 artificial pollination, under favourable circumstances. I always find 

 the stems of the Champion robust and hardy, and the stamens 

 occasionally deformed and without pollen even when the corolla is 

 well expanded and complete. The blossoms are very conspicuous 

 even from a distance in a good season ; but they are of short dura- 

 tion, and the whole flower soon falls away. I may add that the 

 progeny of the Champion from both pure seed and when crossed 

 showed a number of distinct kinds, none of which resembled the 

 female parent; and when reared up to maturity they all proved 

 inferior to that variety. — W. Sim, Fyvie. 



New British Fungus. — At the recent visit of the Cryptogamic 

 Society of Scotland to Aberfoyle there were found, near the Mansion 

 House of Gartmore, growing in a spot where garden rubbish had 

 apparently been burned, numerous specimens of a small orange 

 Peziza, about an eighth of an inch in diameter. It was sent to 

 William Phillips, F.L.S., Shrewsbury, and he replied, "It is Peziza 

 majalis, Fr., of which I am not aware of any record in Britain. It 

 is therefore most interesting. It is very close to P. carbonaria, A. 

 and S., but is smoother outside, is of a more decided orange-yellow 

 inside, and less crenate on the edge; the stem is also shorter." On 

 the same spot were also found P. leucoloma, Hedw., and P. violacea, 

 Pers. — Thomas King. 



