SHOUT NOTES AND QUERIES. 15 



3. What is tlie pliysioloj;ic;il explanation of the acquired odour of 

 Anthoxantlium, Aspenda udorat<f, Mtlilotus officinalis, and other plants 

 when dried ? [See short note on Coumarin, p. 18.] 



4. Does the common Sloe, Prunus spinom, ripen its fruit regularly, if 

 not plentifully, in the midland counties ? Near Manchester, upon clay, 

 near the sandstone and millstone grit, 1 have scarcely ever seen this shrub 

 in fruit, and then very sparingly. Nothing is commoner in the hedges, 

 or more conspicuous in its white bloom, in the month of April. Upon 

 the slate rocks not far from Dolgelly, North Wales, this last autumn the 

 hedges were quite purpled with the fruit. 



5. The green colour of plants is said to result always from the action 

 of sunlight, and the want of sunlight, it is said, causes them to be deficient 

 in green. How is it that the cotyledons of the Sycamore are found to be 

 a lively green when we strip off the hard and leathery carpel ? Is the 

 substance of the carpel in this instance translucent though opaque in 

 seeming ? What otlier instances are there of cotyledons being found green 

 when the ripe seed is cut open ? [Convolvidiis sepium and C. Soldanella.} 



6. Are there any female Lombardy Poplars in England? 



7. What amount of genuine ripe seed is produced by the female 

 Willows and Poplars of our country, the male plants being often at very 

 considerable distances, excepting only Snlix Caprcea, and perhaps another 

 or two ? Does the pollen get conveyed from one tree to the other ? If 

 so, by what agency ? And what is the longest distance at which the 

 female of a dioecious tree has been known to be fertilized from the male 

 of the same species ? Do the females of Poplars and Willows absolutely 

 require the pollen from their ow n " species," or can they be fertilized by 

 the pollen of some other species? — Leo H. Grindon. 



AsARUM Europium, L. (Vol. VIII. pp. 81, 161). — In a seventeenth 

 century MS. list of plants (Sloane MSS. 591) ascribed to Dr. John Pratt, 

 which has additions in the handwriting of Daniel Eoote, M.D., is the fol- 

 lowing (p. 7) : — "Asarabacca. Asarum Mattli. Ger., found in Somersetshire 

 by Dr. Lob., Parkinson, p. 2G7, and on Einsham Common in Oxfordshire." 

 The latter habitat is, perhaps, quoted from Howe's ' Phytologia ' (cf. 

 Vol. VIII. p. 161) ; the former I have not met with elsewhere. It has not, 

 I presume, been recorded of late on reliable authority, as it is not given 

 for Province 1 in any of Mr. H. C. Watson's works. Notwithstanding 

 Journal (p. 161), province 5 is excluded in the Compendium Cyb. Brit., 

 part ii. p. 305, part iii. p. 613. — Robert Tucker. 



CuscuTA Epithymum in Shropshire. — I found this plant in afield 

 near Burcott Gate in great luxuriance, September, 1870. C. Epilinum is 

 the ordy species given in that excellent work, the Rev. W. A. Leighton's 

 ' Flora of Shropshire,' and I am not aware that there exists any record of 

 C. Epithymum being hitherto found in this county. — W. Phillips. 



Alyssum incanum, L. (Journ. Bot. VIII. 383). — I met with this 

 plant in some abundance in a Clover-field near Mobberley, Cheshire, in 

 July, 1870. — James Britten. 



A NEW Parasitic Fungus. — In the number of the ' Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles ' issued in June, 1870 (ser. 5. vol. xi. p. 72), the last 

 that has reached us, is an account by MM. Rose and Cornu of a Fungus (or 

 Alga) parasitic on Wolffia arrhiza, which the authors regard as the type of 

 a new genus, forming provisionally the extreme limit of the SaproleyniefS, 

 with points showing an affinity witli the Feronosporers. They have named it 



