Gelehrte Gesellschaften. 335 



Edinburgh Botanical Society. 



July 13. 



The Society met in the class-room, Royal Botanic Garden; Professor 

 Isaac Bayley Balfour, President, in the chair. 



Dr. Clegliorn read an obituary notice of Deputy Surgeon-General 

 W. Jameson, C. I.E., for many yeai's Superintendent of the Government Bot- 

 anical Gardens in the North-West Provinces of India, and one of the oldest 

 members of the Society. Mr. Jameson, it was stated , was born at Leith, 

 and educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, where his 

 uncle long filled the chair of Natural History. Among his other claims to 

 remenbrance were his efforts for the promotion of tea culture in Northern 

 India; and his name would always be associated with the successsful estab- 

 lishment of this new industry. 



Deputy-Surgeon General Andrew Fleming exhibited and presented to 

 the University Herbarium a collection of plants made by him in 1851 on 

 the Murree and Cahmurr Hills, a series of ranges rising from the north-west 

 of the Punjaub. The plants, he explained, were coUected in camping 

 about during the summer, and he thought they gave a very good idea of 

 the flora of that part of the country. The collection , he fancied , was the 

 first ever made at Murree. One great peculiarity was the paucity of Ferns. 

 He did not suppose that in the whole 300 to 400 specimens there were more 

 than half-a-dozen Ferns; whereas in the Eastern Himalayas in a few weeks 

 one could gather ISO to 200 Ferns. Another point was the scarcity of Rho- 

 dodendrons. Everybody knew the abundance of those plants in the Dar- 

 jeeling district; but he only found one in the whole season. Several specim- 

 ens of Primula and Androsace, specially A. incisa, attracted notice. 



„On the Aestivation of the Floral Envelopes in Helianthemum 

 vulgare". By Professor Dickson. Professor Uickson stated that it had been 

 known for long that the three large sepals and the petals in this plant are con- 

 volute in the opposite directions. It did not, however, appear to have been 

 previously noticed that the contortion or convolution of the floral envelopes 

 is alternately to right and left in the flowers along the false axis of the 

 scorpioid cyme. This fact Professor Dickson pointed out is of considerable 

 interest in connection with the theory of the scorpioid arrangement as the 

 result of heterodromy of the leaf spirals in the successive axes of which this 

 cyme is made up. of the truth of which theory still more conclusive evidence 

 was aflTorded by the late Professor Hofmeister, who showed that in the 

 flowers of Boraginacese, such as Echium and Cerinthe, the calycine Segments 

 of the successive flowers on the cyme form an alternately right and lett- 

 handed quincuncial arrangement. 



„On a Monstrosity in the Flower of Iris Pseudacorus". By Pro- 

 fessor Dickson. In a specimen gathered recently at an excursion to Longniddry 

 the outer perianth segments were normal , but of the inner ones only two 

 were normal, whilst the third one was nearly completely metamorphosed 

 into a stamen with distinctly formed filament and anthers containing pollen, 

 the extremity of the anthers ending in a petaloid expansion. In each of 

 the three young flowers of the same inflorescence there was a fourth stamen 

 of somewhat smaller size than the three normal ones and similarly taking 

 the place of a segment of the inner perianth. Examples of an advance in 

 metamorphosis such as this are of rare occurrence , although cases of retro- 

 grade metamorphosis , such as conversion of stamens into petals, are very 

 common. 



„On Pitcher-like Developments of the Leaves of Pelar- 

 gonium and Cabbage." ByDr. James Sidey : communicated by Professor 

 Dickson. These consisted of two leaves of Pelargonium exhibiting devel- 

 opment as peltate funhels or pretty deep cups , and of an example of 

 Cabbage-leaf with stalked funnels springing from the upper leaf-surface. 



A report on the Vegetation in the garden of the Royal Botanic 

 Institution, Glasgow, for May and June last, prepared by Mr. Robert Bullen, 

 Curator, beinga continuation of the similar report*) read at the May meeting 



*) Cfr. Botan. Centralbl. Bd. XI. 1882. p. 33. 



