FOREIGN NOTICES. 



237 



oils plants, its deep-red flowers being produced in 

 profusion in June and Jul}'. It is a biennial ; 

 therefore seed must be sown every year. Cata- 

 nanclie ca3rulea and C. bicolor, the first b'ue, and 

 the second blue and white, are showy thing's, their 

 scaly flowers bearing some resemblance to those 

 of the Everlastings. These should be laised from 

 seeds every spring, and treated as biennials. The 

 common Everlasting Pea (Lathyrus latifolius.) as 

 well as its white Variety, are very ornamental to- 

 wards the end of suinmer, when carelessly trained 

 npon a few rough sticks; so likewise is L. gran- 

 difiorus. Ononis rotundifolia is an exceedingly 

 pretty thing, with its pale rose-coloured flowers 

 and low bushy habit; and yet it is seldom seen, 

 probably because it is short-lived, and therefore 

 requires to be frequently renewed from seed. 

 Liptris spicata, scariosa, and elcgons produce 

 their spikes of bluish flowers towards the end of 

 summer and beginning of autumn, and are singu- 

 lar as well as pretty, Dictamnus fraxinella is a 

 good old plant now neglected, perhaps because 

 its flowers are not gaudy ; and yet there is suffi- 

 cient character about the plant to make it very 

 interesting. This species is red; and there is 

 another with white flowers, which appears to dif- 

 fer from it in little but colour. Of the perennial 

 Lupins, polyphylius is undoubtedly the handsomest, 

 including, however, its white variety. Grandifo- 

 lius has flowers of a singular dark dull blue, and 

 ornatus is pale blue. By preventing the growth 

 of seed-pods, the flowering season of these plants 

 may be much prolonged. The Aster, in some 

 form or other, is seen in most gardens, especially 

 the tall late-flowering kinds commonly called Mi- 

 chaelmas Daisies; there are, howeve'r, several 

 species of lower growth, which ought never to be 

 excluded from herbaceous beds ; and of these amel- 

 lus, spectabilfs, sibiricus, and alpinus, have large 

 showy blue flowers j while the smaller blossoms 

 of hyssopifolius and elegans are produced in such 

 profusion that they equal the best in cfTect. Num- 

 berless others, equally fine, might be added to the 

 above list, if space permitted; these, however, 

 will serve to form the nucleus of a good selection. 

 /. B. Whiting, in Beck's Flori'^t and Garden 



Miscellany. 



Effects of Lightning on Trees. — At a re- 

 cent meeting of the Botanical Society of Edin- 

 burirh, IMr. M'Nab, of the Royal Botanic Gar- 

 den, made a communication on the effects of light- 

 ning on trees. He remarked: — " A few days ago 

 I accidentally heard of a tree which had been 

 struck by !ightnini,r on the 5th inst (June, 1<S50,) 

 at Piiferrane, Fifesliire, the residence of Andrew 

 Buchanan, Esq.; and, being anxious to ascertain 

 the species, I wrote for a small branch, with any 

 history which could be given regarding it. I have 

 just received the leaves shown, which prove it to 

 be the Uimus monlana, or Wvch Elm. My ob- 

 ject in bringing the notice before the society, is 

 to ascertain from its members any varieties of 



trees known to them as having been struck by the 

 electric fluid. About this time last year a very 

 large oak on the grounds of John Wauchope, Esq., 

 of Edmonston, was shattered to pieces; and a few 

 years previously a laburnum standing close to the 

 oak was likewise destroyed. While on a tour 

 over a portion of the American continent, some 

 years aao, I had several opportunities of observ- 

 ing gigantic trees torn to pieces by electric influ- 

 ence. In every instance I observed they were 

 oaks. During a thunder storm I found the work- 

 men (chiefly in Canada,) resorting to the b;>ech 

 trees for protection, from an idea that they were 

 not liable to be struck by lightning; certain it is, 

 that I saw none, notwithstanding the prevalence 

 of large sized beeches in many districts. The 

 elm above alluded to at Pitferrane, had an iron 

 fence standing close to it, which was supposed by 

 the inhabitants to have had some influence in at- 

 tracting the fluid. The above observations are 

 thrown out, in the hope of ascertaining if there 

 be anything in the composition of one species of 

 tree rendering it less liable than another to elec- 

 tiic influence." Several other members present 

 at the meeting mentioned that the beech, the 

 horse chestnut, and the ash, had all been struck 

 by lightning Cottage Gardener. 



Primodval Vegetation. — The olive-leaf which 

 the dove brought to Noah established at leant 

 three important facts, and indicated a few more. 

 It showed most conclusively that there was dry 

 land, that there were olive trees, and that the cli- 

 mate of the surrounding regions whatever change 

 it might have undergone, was still favorable to 

 the development of vegetable life; and, farther, it 

 might be very safely inferred from it that, if olive 

 trees had survived, other trees and plants must 

 have survived also; and that the dark muddy pro- 

 minences round which the ebbing currents were 

 fast sweeping to lower levels, would soon present, 

 as in antidiluvian times, their coverings of cheer- 

 ful green. The olive leaf spoke not of merely a 

 partial, but of a general vegetation. Now the 

 coniferous lignite of the lower old red sandstone 

 we find charged, like the olive leaf, with a vari- 

 ous and singularly interesting evidence. It is 

 something to know that, in the times of the Coc- 

 costeus and Asterolepis, there existed dry land, 

 and that that land wore, as at after periods, its 

 soft, gay mantle of green. It is something also 

 to know, that the verdant tint was not owing to 

 a profuse development of the mere immaturities 

 of the vegetable kingdom — crisp, slow-growing 

 lichens, or watery spare-propagated fungi that 

 shoot up to their full size in a night — nor even to 

 an abundance of the more highly organized fami- 

 lies of the liverworts, and the mosses. These 

 may have abounded then, as now; though we 

 have not a shadow of evidence that they did. But 

 while we have no proof whatever of their exist- 

 ence, we have conclusive proof that there existed 



