130 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



This shrub usually grows at the base of large timber trees, such as 

 the Eriodendron anfractuosum, in the pasture districts of St. Ann's 

 parish, establishing itself between their elevated buttress-like roots, 

 and with its leaves hanging down to the grass, forms natural arbours, 

 or rather stables, in which the cattle repose during the heat of the 

 day. The negroes use them to wattle the walls of their huts, and 

 call the bush " Alligator Tree," probably from the two Spanish words 

 "a ligar," to tie with. Where it stands free, it attains the size of 

 a full-grown apple-tree ; but it invariably, I believe, grows within 

 shelter of some other and larger one. 



Except this genus and Trichilia, I found no other in Jamaica that 

 had the character of leaf above described. 



The President exhibited numerous specimens of recent and fossil 

 Cycade<B. Among these was a fine specimen of a new species {Cy- 

 cadites Saxbyanus, R. Br.) found in the Isle of Wight by Mr. Saxby 

 of Bonchurch. The President remarked that all the specimens of 

 Cycadites hitherto found in the Isle of Wight agreed in having an 

 elliptical outline, unaccompanied with any inequality in the woody 

 ellipsis, and also in having a bud in the axilla of each leaf ; in these 

 respects differing from the Cycadites of the Isle of Portland and from 

 all the recent species of Cycadece with which we are acquainted, which 

 have a circular outline and only scattered buds. 



Anniversary Meeting. 



May 24. 



Robert Brown, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



This day, the Anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus, and that ap- 

 pointed by the Charter for the election of Council and Officers, the 

 President opened the business of the meeting, and the Secretary read 

 the fallowing Notices of those Members with whose decease the 

 Society had become acquainted since the last Anniversary : — 



John James Audubon, deservedly celebrated as one of the first of 

 ornithological painters, was of French extraction, but born in the 

 neighbourhood of New Orleans. At an early age he was taken to 

 France, where he received the rudiments of education, and studied 



