LIXNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDUX. 69 



Ficiis which exhibits the pecuharity of having all its leaves modified 

 into hypoascidial cups. The alteration of leaves into cups is not 

 an uncommon phenomenon, but it rarely extends to all the leaves 

 of an individual plant, and in no other known plant are the leaves 

 hypoascidial. A sustained enquiry failed to show whence this 

 particular tree had originally come or to indicate that another tree 

 with foliage of this kind occurs elsewhere. After some trouble 

 two rooted cuttings of the original tree were established in the 

 nurseries of the iioyal Botanic Cxarden at Calcutta. But, though 

 nothing of the kind had ever been seen or heard of elsewhere, the 

 rooted cuttings in question, which were a soiave of great interest 

 to the native gardeners of the establislunent, at once evoked a 

 myth of the most circumstantial character, in which an incident 

 in the life of Rama was made to account for the appearance oi 

 these supernatural cups. Nor did the matter end hex'e. When, 

 a couple of seasons later, one of the two cuttings had become 

 sutticiently large to admit of its being planted out in the public 

 part of the garden, where it again excited great interest among a 

 wider and often much more highly educated class, another myth 

 as circumstantial as the first was evolved to explain the occuri'ence 

 and shape of the leaves. But the incident and the explanation 

 were altogether different, and the supernatural power required to 

 account for the existence of the cups was attributed to Krishna, 

 not to Kama. The inference from the existence of a myth in 

 connection with a natural phenomenon, that therefore the pheno- 

 menon which the myth endeavours to explain has been long known, 

 is in this case precluded ; while the fact that in the instance under 

 review not one myth only, but two, were promptly forthcoming, 

 seems to show that, given a child-like and imaginative people, 

 a phenomenon only requires to be sutticiently striking to ensure 

 the impromptu evolution of a mythical explanation. 



The last lecture was delivered by Mr. Fbakcis J. Lewis, F.L.S., 

 on the Plant-remains in British Peat-mosses ; he said : — 



I have been asked to say a few words this evening on the 

 succession of vegetation in the peat of Britain ; a deposit of some 

 interest, inasmuch as many peat-bogs contain, buried in their 

 depths, a complete story of the vegetation which has existed over 

 such spots since the Glacial period. 



The interest of a peat-moss depends upon the fact that it shows 

 definite stratification. A few slides «ill make this evident. If 

 the stream channels of many mosses are walked through, the stems 

 and roots of large trees are often seen exposed as the bank is 

 gradually cut back by the stream at its base. 



When the peat is deep and the stream has cut its way dow^n to 

 the underlying soil, the tree-roots and stems are seen to occur in 

 a definite layer — sometimes one, more frequently two, and occa- 

 sionally three such forest layers can be recognized, separated by 

 thick beds of peat quite free from tree-remains. 



Two such forest zones can be I'ecognized in Britain. 



