lO PKOCKEDINGS OF THE 



April 1st, 1897. 



Dr. A. GrtTNTHEE, P.R.S., President, in tlie Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



Prof. Graf zu Solms-Laubacli, the Eev. Kobert Usher, and 

 Mr. William Martindale were admitted, and Messrs. James Bryant 

 Sowerby and John Christopher Willis were elected Pellows of the 

 Society. 



Mr. Miller Christy exhibited three royal state-cloaks formerly 

 worn by the Kings of the Hawaiian Islands and made of the 

 feathers of four species of birds, of which the exhibitor gave 

 an account, referring to the coloured figures of them gi?eu in 

 Mr. Scott Wilson's ' Birds of Hawaii,' namely, Vestiaria coc- 

 cinea (red.), Fsittacirostra psittacea (green), Acrulocercus nohilis^ 

 and Drepanis pacifica (black and yellow). The last-named, of 

 which no specimen is to be found in the National Collection, was 

 believed to be now extinct. 



Mr. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer exhibited : — (i) A series of drawings 

 (on the screen) to illustrate the " Cultural evolution of Cyclamen 

 latifolmm, Sibth." The species is a native of Greece and the 

 Levant, and is believed to have been first introduced into 

 European cultivation in 1731. In 1768 Miller described a form 

 modified by cultivation under the name of Cyclamen persicum. 

 This was erroneous, as according to Boissier neither the wild 

 nor the garden form occur in Persia. The latter persisted in 

 cultivation for about 150 years, and about 1860 became the 

 starting-point of the modern races which were illustrated. 

 Cyclamen latifolium has never been hybridized, and it was 

 shown that the striking forms now in cultivation were the result 

 of the patient accumulation of gradual variations. Drawings of 

 the remarkable forms " Papilio," obtained by de Langhe-Vervaene 

 and of " The Bush-Hill Pioneer," by Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., 

 were shown. It was pointed out that the tendency of the species 

 under cultivation was to lose its distinctive generic characters, 

 and to approximate to a more generalized type. The reflexion 

 of the corolla-segments was often lost as in Lysimachia, the 

 segments were sometimes multiplied as in Trientalis, and the 

 margins were fringed as in Soldanella and cultivated forms of 

 Frimula sinensis. The " Bush-Hill Pioneer " possessed, in the 

 cresting of the petals, a remarkable character without parallel in 

 any primuiaceous plant occurring in a wild state. 



(ii) A series of plants was exhibited to illustrate the origin of 

 the garden " Cineraria." It was generally agreed that this had 

 sprung from one or more species native of the Canaries. An 

 extreme cultivated form was shown and compared with Senecio 

 crwew^MS, which ail internal evidence indicated as the sole original 

 stock. 8. Heritieri, another reputed parent, was exhibited. 

 But it was pointed out that this has a shrubby habit and stems 



