36 PBOCEEDHiTGS OF THE 



well filled witli pollen, wliicli stand above the stigmas ; but 

 whether the latter be perfect or not has not been examined. 

 At all events, seed is never set, so it is practically impotent. 



The double form is very common, though not to the same 

 extent, in Malta, and, as mentioned above, it occurs in N. Africa 

 as well as in the Atlantic Islands. It often has rather smaller 

 leaves, but I do not think this can be relied upon as a fixed 

 character ; the petals are sometimes more than fifty in number, 

 and are of an orange-yellow in colour, those of the ordinary form 

 being a golden yellow. 



It may be added that the tendency to produce bulbs is to 

 some extent dependent on the growth of the plant. The gene- 

 rally infertile calcareous ground of Malta, where it grows by the 

 roadsides, &c., tends to induce the formation of bulbs, for they 

 are much fewer on a plant which grows luxuriantly, when it 

 spends its energies in the development of flowers and foliage. 

 Thus, in the orange-gardens of Cairo it does not spread as in 

 Malta, but the individual plants grow to a great size. 



As an illustration of the production of bulbs under a check to 

 vitality, I may add that when specimens are being pressed for a 

 herbarium, a quantity of bulbs are always formed at the same 

 time at the crown of the vertical rhizome ; the vital energy, being 

 checked above, now expends itself in the formation of bulbs until 

 the whole plant is dead. 



A final word on Oxalis corniculata, L. This species is very 

 widespread, and botanists of the last century ofteu allude to its 

 extension in the Mediterranean regions. It is a native of Malta, 

 but at the present time only to be found in gardens. It was 

 the opinion of the late Dr. Gulia, Professor of Botany in the Uni- 

 versity of Malta, that Oxalis cernua had driven it away from the 

 open ground. In Cairo, 0. corniculata is abundant in the 

 Esbekiyeh public gardens, where it occupies large patches in the 

 " turf," the latter being principally composed of Cyperus roiundus 

 and Lippia nodifiora, which it appears to displace. In the botanic 

 garden at Cairo, the two species were actually growing inter- 

 mixed as intruders in a border, and 0. cernua was certainly 

 overwhelming the 0. corniculata. 



COKRECTION. 



Dr. Eobert Brown, F.L.S,, writes with reference to the bust 

 ofLinnsDus mentioned in the Proceedings for 1887-88, p. 105, 

 and 1888-90, p. 27, as follows :— 



" It seems to have been executed by a Danish sculptor named 

 Prior, though under what circumstances has still to be learnt. 

 If my information be correct, the bust was never actually cut in 

 marble, nor cast in bronze. It never went beyond the plaster, and 

 as Prior died within my memory, the portrait, which by all 

 accounts is a good one, must have been a composition from 



paintings, engravings, or other busts and statues At all 



events, Thorwaldsen had nothing to do with it." 



