SHORT NOTES AND QUERIES. 333 



species amongst the Lake hills proper by sciidiiiii a specimen gathered by 

 himself this autumn amongst the Helvellyn precipices at an elevatiou 

 above sea-level of nearly 3000 feet. He has also met with Fyrola secitnda 

 above Thirlraere, presumably in the same places where it was found many 

 years ago by Messrs. Watson and Woods. — J. (x. Baker. 



"Right-handed v. Left-handed. — The question mooted by Mr. 

 R. Tucker (Jouru. Bot. IX. p. 216), whether a given twining plant 

 should be called chxtrorsum or sinistrorsum volubiUs, is, when properly 

 looked at, one of such extreme simplicity that it certainly ought not to 

 have greatly exercised either mathematicians or botanists. De Candolle, 

 whom Prof. Clerk Maxwell is stated to have accused of leading astray 

 and perverting many uidiappy naturalists in 1827, thus explains the 

 matter in that year : — "On determine la direction des tiges volubiles en 

 supposant qu'on est soi-mciue place au centre de la spii'ale, et que la tige 

 tourne autour de son propre corps " (Organ. Veg. i. 156); and five years 

 later he gave a similar explanation in his ' Fhysiologie Vegetale" (ii. 840). 

 But the best discussion of the point with which I am acquainted is by 

 Schleiden, who states the case clearly and cogently in these words : — " I 

 will here very briefly discuss the terms right and left-wound stem, in 

 regard to which much confusion prevails. The natural conception is this : 

 the plant is developed from below upward, consequently it ascends; if, 

 now, we use the expressions left and right concerning the plant, this can 

 only have a meaning when we place ourselves in its position ; but we 

 turn to the left in ascending if we have the axis of revolution to the left, 

 to the right if we have it to the right. If we refer it to the course of the 

 sun, we can evidently, in regard to our northern hemisphere, only bring 

 the southern half of each revolution turned toward the sun into relation 

 with its course, and then the right-wound spiral would go with the sun, 

 the left-wound against it. Liniucus strangely used these terms in the 

 opposite way, evidently starting from an obscure conception ; and many 

 others have followed him therein. Many have quite reversed the thing, 

 called left right and right left, till the whole matter had become confused. 

 The reference to the course of the sun is, moreover, a very imperfect 

 mark. It appears to me, however, that left and right-Avound cannot well 

 be understood in any other way than that which 1 liave given " (Princ. of 

 Sc. Bot. 233). A screw is called " right-haiuled " in mechanics vvhen a 

 line touching the thread rises to the right (Golding Bird and l?rooke, 

 Elem. Nat. Phil. ed. 5, p. 102) ; but it is obvious that the movement of 

 rotation of such a screw is to the left. If a hollow screw of this kind — 

 say a common corkscrew — be blackened inside and then rotated round a 

 white stick, the marks it leaves will rise from the left to the right of the 

 experimenter, though the motion of the screw itself is to the left. In the 

 same way, a person ascending a spiral staircase, the axis of which is on 

 his left-hand, is always turning to the left, but he woidd pass from the 

 left to the right of an observer stationed at the circumference of the stair- 

 case. Again, if the horses in a circus are riding round with their off 

 legs toward the centre, they are going to the rigiit ; but, whilst traversing 

 tiie semicircle nearest a spectator seated outside, they are passing to his 

 left. The error of those who advocate and follow the Linnsean termino- 

 logy is that, instead of describing the actual direction taken by the stem, 

 they give the apparent one as seen by au observer standing without the 



