LTNNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 9 



The following papers were read : — 



1. "On the^External Nares of the Cormorant." By "W. P. 

 Pycraft, A.L.S. 



2. "On the Fertilization of Glaux maritima, Liun." B7 

 Edward Step, F.L.S. 



3. " On the Irish Carex rhynchopJiysa.''^ By G. C. Druce, 



r.L.s. 



March 16th, 1899. 



Dr. Albert C. L. G. Gunthee, E.E.S., President, in the Chair. 



The Miautes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



Mr. Peter Chalmers Mitchell was admitted, and the following 

 were elected Fellows of the Society : — Messrs. Bertram Henry 

 Bentley, Keneth Hurlstoae Jones, Arthur John Maslen, and 

 Henry Prank Tagg. 



Dr. John Lowe, P.L.S., communicated some observations on 

 the fertilization of Araujia aliens, G. Hon, a Brazilian climber, 

 which in the South ol' England grows in the open air. Last 

 summer it was blooming freely in Lord Ilchester's garden at 

 Abbotsbury, where the flowers were visited by numbers of butter- 

 flies, diurnal motlis, humble-bees, wasps, and large flies, many of 

 which were captured and imprisoned for a tune in the piuching- 

 bodies (Jtlemwkorper of Muller). All tliese insects, with the 

 exception of some humble-bees, in their visits to the nectar left 

 their proboscis behind, and sometimes a leg, being not strong 

 enough to detach the pinching-body. Dr. Lowe described the 

 structure of the pinching-bodies, which are flat horny plates 

 situated, above the nectar-cups, at each angle of a 5-sided hollow 

 cone in the centre of the flower, in which is placed the stigma. 

 There is only a small opening at the apex and a narrow slit at the 

 base of each facet of the cone. To the upper point of the 

 pinching-body the pollinia are attached. When an insect has 

 its proboscis caught in the slit, which narrows always to its point, 

 it can only escape by tearing away the body with its pollen- 

 masses or by leaving its proboscis in the slit. In the former case 

 it carries the pollinia to the next flower it visits, and thus effects 

 cross-fertilization by leaving the pollen-mass between the anther- 

 ■wings, whence it rapidly passes into the cone. He had received 

 a number of flowers of Araujia from Mr. Benbow, the gardener 

 at Abbotsbury, in some of which he found the proboscis of a 

 butterfly or moth in each of the five angles of the cone, showing 

 the great destruction of insect-life caused by the plant. 



Mr. N. E. Brown, A.L.S., having made a special study of the 

 Asclepiadaceae, gave an account of the manner in which 

 the pollinia reach the stigma ; and some further remarks were 

 made by Mr. A. W. Bennett. 



