378 THE ORIGIN OF PLANT-STRUCTURES. 



and varied flora of Littlesea. My attention was drawn to the bush 

 by Mr. L, V. Lester, who was leading our party at the time, and 

 I saw at once that it was a handsome form of the hybrid with 

 broadly oblong- or obovate-elliptic leaves very soft beneath ; a few 

 withered female catkins showed the sex. This hybrid has often 

 been searched for Dorset, but till now I believe in vain. Further 

 on in the same walk we found Eriophorwn (jracile Koch, scattered 

 about a swampy and usually inaccessible scrub, not far from the 

 original locality, where it was also plentiful. — Edward F. Linton. 



A Hybrid Poppy ? — I enclose a capsule which appears to be that 

 of a hybrid Pcrpaver orientale X P. Lecoqii Lamotte. The plant 

 was first noticed in flower in the summer of 1894, on a spot where 

 P. Lecoqii had grown for several years, about ten yards from an 

 established plant of P. orientale ; it was watched with some curiosity 

 through the wiuter, and in 1895 flowered at intervals from May to 

 October ; it has since been divided, and the offsets, as well as the 

 old root, are growing satisfactorily. The foliage is like that of 

 P. orientale, but on a smaller scale ; the flower is also smaller and 

 lighter red, the black spot being generally present, varying in size ; 

 the sap is yellow. Although many capsules have been formed, the 

 seed does not seem to mature. P. pilosum is growing midway 

 between the supposed parents, but I cannot trace any resemblance 

 to it. The capsule is evidently not that of P. orientale, which 

 moreover has white sap in my examples. If my supposition as to 

 the parentage is correct, the seed probably came from the annual, 

 the fertilisation of which, by pollen from the perennial, resulted in 

 the production of a plant which shows no sign of decay after the 

 second year's flowering. — 0. Crouch. 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



The Origin of Plant-structures by Self- adaptation to the Environment. 

 By the Eev. George Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., &c. 8vo, 

 pp. xiii, 256. International Science Series. London: Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. 1895. Price 5s. 



In a book previously published in the same series, Mr. Henslow 

 endeavoured to prove that " the direct action of the environment, 

 coupled with the responsive power of protoplasm," were " the sole 

 and efficient causes " of the origin of floral structures. The object 

 of the present work is to establish the same for vegetative structures, 

 "so that the two books taken together, it is hoped, will furnish a 

 tolerably complete proof of the truth that the origin of all plant- 

 structures issues from self-adaptation to the environment (directly 

 or indirectly), without the aid of natural selection." 



"Natural selection plays no part in the Origin of Species"; 

 " The Supposed Requirements of Natural Selection " ; " Darwin's 

 Fundamental Error," are the three first headings of Mr. Henslow's 

 introductory chapter, and in them he strikes the key-note of the 

 whole book. The title of this chapter, " On the Origin of Species 



