70 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



at Seaton, where he died on December 4th and was buried on 

 December 6th.— J. W. W. 



At the meeting of the Linnean Society on December 19th 

 Mr. Cecil H. Hooper gave an account of "experiments on the 

 pollination of our hardy fruits, with observations on the insect 

 visitors to the blossoms." He stated that strawberries, provided 

 there is wind, set fruit well without insects. Easpberries and 

 loganberries generally set fruit imperfect in shape if insects are 

 excluded. Eed, white, and black currants and gooseberries, 

 owing to the construction of their flowers and pollen (which 

 is glutinous), cannot be pollinated and set their fruit without 

 the visits of insects, more particularly hive and bumble bees. 

 All the previously mentioned plants set fruit perfectly with pollen 

 of the same variety or even of the same flower ; but in the case 

 of the apple, pear, plum, and cherry, this is not always the case, 

 many varieties being self-sterile, and almost all produce more 

 abundant and finer fruit with pollen of another variety. In these 

 trees there is very little transference of pollen by the wind, and 

 even if a self-fertile tree is enclosed in muslin whilst in blossom 

 (there being ample movement of the wind, insects only being 

 excluded), it is the exception for any fruit to set ; it is the same 

 with gooseberries and currants. In trials with apples, only 

 19 varieties out of 65 proved self-fertile ; in pears, 4 out of 30 ; 

 in plums, 21 out of 41 ; in cherries, 5 out of 12 ; whilst, when 

 cross-pollinated, in three quarters of the trials one or more fruits 

 set on a truss. There seems to be a preference as to pollen, some 

 varieties setting better with pollen of one variety than of that of 

 another ; and some varieties will not set with certain pollen. The 

 knowledge of the usual order of blossoming is useful as a guide 

 for interplanting varieties, so as to choose varieties that flower 

 about the same time for planting together. Out of nearly 3,000 

 insects observed this spring visiting the blossoms of the various 

 fruit-bushes and trees, 88 per cent, were hive-bees, 5| per cent, 

 bumble and other wild bees, and 6| per cent, flies, ants, beetles, 

 wasps, and other insects ; but the latter group have not fluffy 

 bodies for carrying and transferring pollen, and chiefly amuse 

 themselves eating the pollen, and are not therefore proportion- 

 ately as useful as the hive and wild bees. 



At the same meeting Dr. Stapf exhibited specimens of wild 

 rice, annual and perennial. He defined " wild rice " as including 

 all spontaneously growing forms of Oryza, which, as far as the 

 structure of their spikelets is concerned, might be considered as 

 conspecific with Oryza sativa, except that their spikelets are 

 readily deciduous when mature. He showed in a map the 

 present extension of rice-cultivation, and traced briefly its 

 history ; whilst another map demonstrated the area of the 

 genus Oryza, with the exclusion of cultivated rice. He then 

 pointed out the main areas of "wild rice," as defined above: — 

 (1) in North Australia ; (2) in India, with extensions to Cambodja 

 and possibly Borneo ; (3) in tropical Africa, from Abyssinia to 



