270 Lhmean Society. [Jan. 1 



/ J 



the habit of getting from varioas parts of England, as well as from 

 the continent, along with some of which he considers the Anacharis 

 ■was introduced to his collection, though he has no knowledge of its 

 being so. At the time stated, Mr. D'Olier acted as Chairman of the 

 Committee of Botany for the Royal Dublin Society, which caused 

 me to have frequent official intercourse with him, and for which 

 purpose I occasionally went to Booterstown. In the centre of his 

 garden, where a number of gold and silver fish were kept in a small 

 pond, we first noticed the Anac?taris. I did not then know the 

 plant, further than that it was not a British species, and brought 

 some of it to cnltirate in the Botanic Garden, where it was placed 

 in an earthenware crock and put in the pond. Little more was 

 thought about it, xmtil the late Mr. Macavdey brought it from the 

 pond in Mr. D'Olier's garden to the College garden, about the time 

 inquiry was awakened respecting it in England. My foreman then 

 told me there was plenty of it growing in our pond, which I had not 

 before noticed, but I had no doubt, on inquiry, of this being the 

 increase of the few plants I first brought from Booterstown. In the 

 way then I have stated, the Anacharis made its appearance in this 

 neiehbourhood, where I believe it is stiU confined : I have not seen 

 or heard of its being elsewhere in Ireland, though it increases 

 equally fast here as it does in England. There are now some 

 millions of plants in our pond, and as many more destroyed since it 

 was first introduced." 



Read also, some observations " On the correctness of the position 

 assigned to Oxycladus in the Family of BignoniacecE." By John 

 Miers, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. 



Mr. Miers states, that eifter a careful consideration of the argu- 

 ments advanced at the last Meeting by Dr. Seemann, he sees no 

 reason to alter his conviction as to the proper position of the genus 

 in question. Dr. Seemann contends that Oxycladus is too anomalous 

 in form to be admitted among BignoniacecE on account of its fruit, 

 which is a hard monospermous nut, with the seed suspended from 

 near the summit of the cell, and of its embryo, which has large 

 fleshy cotyledons, while there are no wings developed on the testa ; 

 and maintains that on these grounds it rather belongs to Mt/oporacea;, 

 with which family it agrees better in habit, having broom-Hke branches 

 terminating in a spine, and especially with the genus Bontia, with 

 which it agrees in its hard nut, and which it approaches in the 

 country of its origin. Mr. Miers on the other hand believes that it 

 is easy to oppose to these arguments a number of facts, showing 



