4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Capt. H. P. Deasy near Yepal Ungar, in the Kwen Lua mountains, 

 at an altitude of 1 6,500 feet. The plants were not growing in this 

 remarkable locality, but were preserved in a bed 10 to 12 feet thick 

 on top of and interspersed with which were strata of blue clay. 

 The broken leaves and sheaths of which the specimens consisted 

 were dry and brittle, but showed no alteration, the internal structure 

 being as perfect as in the fresh plant. As the country is geologically 

 unknown, it is impossible to estimate the age of the deposit. 

 It probably formed the bed of a salt-lake. There is one in the 

 neighbourhood ; and Capt. Deasy is of opinion that the whole 

 district formed at one time a large salt-lake. The specimens were 

 very dusty, but microscopic examination of the dust revealed nothing 

 beyond particles of sand and a few small brown objects, apparently 

 spores of some kind. Capt. Deasy states that he saw similar growths 

 in a lake in the same district, but was unable to procure specimens. 

 This occurrence of Zostera marina in the heart of the Asiatic con- 

 tinent and at so great an elevation, is of special interest. The plant, 

 so far as known, is purely marine, occurring plentifully on our own 

 coasts, and throughout Europe, on the Atlantic shores of North. 

 America, and in North-east Asia. It has not previously been 

 recorded from an inland lake, though an allied species, Zostera nana, 

 Linn., occurs in the Caspian. Whether its existence in the Kwen 

 Lun range has any relation to the Tertiary marine deposits which 

 connect the Mediterranean area with the Himalayas is matter for 

 conjecture. There seems to be some evidence for the existence of 

 Zostera in Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary times ; at any rate several 

 species have been described from fossils resembling the rhizome of 

 the plant, found in Central European beds. 



A discussion followed in which Dr. Stapf, Messrs. E. M. Holmes, 

 H. Groves, J. E. Harting, and Prof. Howes took part. 



Dr. Eendle also showed a specimen of another marine mono- 

 cotyledonous plant, Halophila stipidacea, Asch,, from Tuticorin in 

 Southern India, sent by Mr. Edgar Thurston. This species is not 

 included in the ' Flora of British India,' nor in Trimeu's ' Cej'lon 

 Flora'; a plant found by Dr. Harvey at Trincomalee, and thus deter- 

 mined by Thwaites, being assigned to the commoner H. ovata, Gaud, 

 II. stipulacea occurs in the Ked Sea, the Mascarene Islands, and 

 Eodriguez. 



The Eev. John Gerard, F.L.S., exhibited some abnormally large 

 shells of the Swan Mussel, Anodonta cygnea, forwarded from 

 Claughton, Garstang, Lancashire, by Mr. W. Fitzherbert Brockholes. 

 The three largest of these measured 8*75 in., 8 in., and 7'5 in. in 

 width, these measurements being considerably in excess of those 

 given in the text-books, and of the examples figured as Mytilus 

 cygneus in Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. viii. pi. 3, p. 109, and as Mytilus 

 stagnalis (from Kew Gardens) in Sowerby's 'British Miscellany,' 

 vol. i. pi. xvi. p. 33. It was stated that amongst other specimens 

 found in the pond at Claughton, when drained, there was one of 



