SHOUT NOTES AKlJ QUERIES. 17 



ScLERODEKMA Geaster. — I see Dr. Bull is said to liave first found 

 this when on the " foray" in October last, but I found it several weeks 

 before, and being- unable to make it agree with any species in our English 

 books, I took it down to the Hereford Meeting, and called Mr. AVorthing- 

 ton Smith's attention to the fact of its changing to a dark brown colour 

 when cut, a peculiarity not mentioned as pertaining to any English 

 species hitherto described. I have several now growing in my garden, 

 but only one bursts in the Gcaster-like manner. — W. Phillips. 



Protandry in Butomus umbellatus, L. — During the summer of 

 1869 I observed this ])lant rather closely, and found that the pollen was 

 discharged from the anthers before the stigmas became receptive. The 

 stamens are somewhat erect before the discharge of the pollen, but after- 

 wards fall back upon the perianth. A small globule of rather viscid, 

 sweetish fluid appears between each carpel, and may probably attract 

 insects for purposes either of cross- or .of self-ferlilization. — James 

 Britten. 



CuscuTA Hassiaca, Pfeiff. — It may l)e well to place on record that 

 Mr. John Dovaston, of Westfelton, Shropshire, sent me this plant, which 

 he found growing this summer at Wigmarsh, near that place. It bids 

 fair to become naturalized in England. — W. A. Leighton. 



Monstrous G-rowth in a Cauliflower. — A short time ago I 

 received a cauliflower plant, of which the heart had been completely eaten 

 out by the larvte of the stag-beetle, which infested the garden where it 

 grew. The injury had taken place when the plant was quite young, so 

 that the scar was healed up; but, as is often the case when plants of 

 the cabbnge tribe have been similarly injured, all further growth seemed 

 to have been arrested ; and although the lower leaves remained green and 

 healthy, there were no sprouts formed in their axils, nor any new shoots 

 from the crown of the root. When the plant was pulled up, however, a 

 strange abnormal growth was found to have taken place in the root. An 

 immense number of buds had been produced from the lower part of the 

 collar, and from the axils of many of the larger rootlets ; and these had 

 pushed their way, not up into the air, as might have been expected, but 

 downwards into the soil, forming a dense mass of underground shoots, 

 bearing rudimentary leaves, and which, after penetrating the soil a short 

 distance, began to turn upwards. — Uobert Holland. 



Thlaspi perfoliatum, L. — This interesting plant is somewhat un- 

 certain in its occurrence in its localities, and seems to prefer broken 

 limestone not too much disintegrated. Mr. H. Boswell found it, how- 

 ever, on cultivated ground near Woodstock, but on visiting the place with 

 him another year we did not detect a single specimen. In 1869 I met 

 with it very plentifully on the bare sides of the embankment, and even 

 on the ballast between the rails, of the Great Western llailway from the , 

 Tetbury Road Station for about a mile towards Hayley Wood. A patch 

 of very fine individuals occurred on a roadside bank close to the village 

 of Sapperton. The Sapperton tunnel locality, first, I believe, given by 

 Professor Buckmann, I did not verify ; it is somewhat ambiguous, as 

 there are two tunnels at Sapperton, the lower one carrying the Thames 

 and Severn Canal over the watershed of the two rivers. Dr. St. Brody, 

 who visited the place with me, thought that a spoil heap over one of the 

 shafts of the tunnel Avas the original locality, but w^e failed to find the 

 plant there. —AV. T. Thiselton Dyer. 



vol. IX. [JANUARY 1, 1871.] C 



