656 NATURAL SCIENCE. ^ov.. 



Guards. The party intends to proceed by an unknown route from 

 Kismahu to Lake Rudolf, and will probably return across Somali- 

 land. Mr. J. W. Gregory, of the British Museum, accompanies the 

 expedition as naturalist and geologist, by permission of the Trustees 

 of the British Museum, and it is hoped thus to obtain important 

 acquisitions for the National collection. 



Mr. William Wilson sends a note from Alford, Aberdeen, N.B., 

 on the phenomenal duration of the flowers of the Broom {Cytistis 

 scoparitis), which he has observed this season. He says it has been 

 generally a late season for the flowering of plants, and it is usual in 

 such years to find a very meagre flourish upon the Broom. This 

 season, however, the flourish has been exceptionally large. What 

 has still more surprised those acquainted with the habits of the shrub 

 is the very long time during which it has remained in flower. This 

 cannot be due to the cold weather, as in former cold years the bloom 

 has suffered. Mr. Wilson, who claims to have studied the shrub for 

 several years, believes that the bacterioids associated with*the roots 

 are the cause of several peculiarities of the plant, and thinks the 

 above peculiarities in the flowering are in some way due to the re- 

 action of the nature of the season on those orcfanisms. 



Baron Ferdinand von Mueller contributes a note to the 

 October number of the Journal of Botany on the sudden death of Mr. 

 Robert Fitzgerald, F.L.S., which took place on August 13, at his 

 residence, Hunter's Hill, Sydney, in his sixty-second year. The 

 Baron says, " his orchidographic researches, supported by a rare 

 ability in plant-drawing, are beyond all praise. The greater number 

 of Australian orchids are done by him for his superb work, but it is 

 to be lamented that he did not live to complete it." In 1869 ^e 

 visited Lord Howe's Island with Mr. Charles Moore, " when for the first 

 time the almost entirely endemic vegetable treasures of that isolated 

 spot between New Zealand and Norfolk Island became revealed." 

 He there ascended the " dangerously steep Mount Li^lgbird " 

 discovering the 40 ft. high Dvacophyllmn Jitzgeyaldi. " His obser- 

 vations on the fertilisation and hybridisation of numerous Australian 

 species are highly important." His researches were mainly in New 

 South Wales, though he made a lengthened tour to \\'est Australia 

 to study in the living state its largely unique Orchid flora. 



The Narcissus seems to be ousting the Potato in the Scilly 

 Islands, according to the Gaydener's Chyonicle for September 3. The 

 Narcissus crop now takes the precedence of the tuber; many who 

 grew potatoes largely a few years ago now growing none at all. Fields 

 of hundreds of thousands of beautiful Narcissi may often be seen in 

 bloom in February and March, We are told that one grower will 

 have under cultivation this season no less than 20 acres. 



