SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. Ill 



Pliny mentions their employment for besoms among the Eomaus, and 

 Browne in his ' Britannia's Pastorals ' says, — 



" Amongst the rest the Tamarisk there stood, 

 For housewives' besoms onely knowne most good." 



J. R. Jackson. 



Plants of Co. Cork. — Brosera anyllca. — I found this sparingly in a 

 new station, Bluefort Bog, Newmarket, in the north-west of the county, 

 in the summer of 1870. The ' Cybele' states it as hitherto only recorded 

 from the west ; indeed, apparently only from a point so far west as 

 Berehaven. On the same bog very sparingly grew Carex Umosa, not yet 

 recorded from this county. Ranunculus heterophyllus, Bab., for which 

 only a few stations in tlie extreme north of Ireland are given in the 

 Cybele Hib., is not uncommon in this neighbourhood. I gathered it 

 abundantly last summer. TrifoHnni scahrum is stated to be very rare, and 

 to occur only in one or two of our midland connties. (See Cyb. Hib.) 

 Two or three years since I found it growing abundantly on sand-hills 

 near Youghal, in this county. — T. Allin. 



Chlorophyll prodfced without Influence of Light (p. 1.5). — 

 The production of clilorophyll in plant-tissues removed from the influence 

 of light h;>8 not escaped the attention of physiologists. Sachs has discussed 

 the matter (see Micheli's translation of his 'Physiologic Vegetale') ; al- 

 though he considers that the virescence of the embryos of many plants is 

 not really a case in point, since "the light penetrates through the walls 

 of the carpel and the testa of the seed with sufficient energy to produce 

 this result." He has, however, found that the embryos of Pinus Pinea, 

 P. canadensis, P. Strobus, Thuja orientaUs become green even when every 

 precaution is taken to keep them in obscurity, and that this is also the 

 case with the fronds of Adiantnm CapUlus-Veneris^ Poly podium vulgare, 

 Jspidiuni spinulosum, Scolopendrinm officinale, Pteris chnjsocarpa. He 

 thinks that in cases like these there may be a substance capable of acting 

 on the protoplasm with the same effect as light. He finds reason for 

 thinking this Hkely, from the production of a green colour when etiolated 

 chlorophyll is heated with fuming sulphuric acid. — W. T. Thiselton 

 Dyer. 



Economic Applications of Cyperus longus, Z. — In Ansted's 

 'Channel Islands,' p. 517, it is stated that the material named Han " is 

 derived from the fibre of the Cyperus lonyus, manufactured like hemp. It 

 is used instead of rope for many purposes, and is preferred to hemp, inas- 

 much as it does not readily harden, or become coated with slimy weed, 

 when exposed to the action of salt water. Mats, footstools, saddles, 

 horse-collars, shackles for cattle, etc., are made from it, as well as boat- 

 rope, and rope for various fishing purposes." On page 180, the manu- 

 facture is spoken of as confined to Guernsey; and when in the island last 

 year I made inquiries about it, but without much success. After some 

 search I heard that native-made saddles and mats were occasionally 

 brought into S. Peter Port from the distant parts of the island. I 

 secured one of the saddles, which is a packsaddle used for bringing up the 

 vi-aic or wrack from the shore. It is now in the Economic Museum of 



