180 



To give any summary of the Meetings of the Club for the past year, I am 

 iinfortunately very Ul qualified, in consequence of absence on those occasions. 

 This, however, cannot be regretted. The benefit is yours ; since the excursion 

 to Abergavenny, in September, appears to have been the most interesting, and 

 a narration of which, I am happy to say, is in far abler hands — Dr. Bevan having 

 kindly consented to add to our annals an account of that day's proceedings, and 

 which we have just had the pleasure of hearing. 



If the Meeting at Bromyard, in J uue, afforded neither geological nor botanical 

 specimen of rarity, it produced a discussion on the extent smd nature of the drift 

 in the valleys of the Wye and Lugg ; and I cannot but think the topic of sufficient 

 local scientific interest to deserve investigation and a place in our Transactions. 



The other Meeting, at Kington, in July, was more prolific in specimens. 

 The Geologist found a great abundance of fossils ; the most interesting of which 

 was the finest specimen supposed to have been ever found of the swimming feet 

 and pincers of that large crustacean, the Pterygotus Anglicus. Mr. Flavell 

 Edmunds has also found Scrophularia Ehrhardti, at Huntington, not a very 

 common plant anywhere — £ind hitherto, I understand, imobserved here ; also, 

 an Adoxa Moschatellina, at Hunderton ; which, though previously not noticed 

 here, is abundant in the southern parts of the county. It wUl be remembered, 

 this gentleman read a paper at our last Annual Meeting on the sudden appearance 

 of plants new to the locality, on the railway embankments near Hereford. He 

 has since then remarked their as sudden disappearance ; which he considers to 

 establish his theory that they sprang from buried seeds. The Rev. Mr. Crouch 

 found Hyoscyamus niger at Pembridge, under somewhat analagous circumstances 

 — on digging down to an old drain, the soil with which it was again covered over 

 produced from 30 to 40 plants. On the soil which re-covered a grave that had 

 been recently dug, and which apparantly had not been disturbed for many years, 

 he also noticed the same plant. Though there does not seem any reason why 

 this particul£ir vegetable production should not be indigenous, Mr. Crouch's efforts 

 to discover a specimen in the neighbourhood have never been successful. It is 

 not cin uncommon occurrence for large tracts of the North American forests to be 

 consumed by accidental fires, when a similar phenomenon occurs by the springing 

 up of trees wholly dissimilar in kinds to those destroyed, and which is usually 

 attributed to the vivification of long buried seeds. There is one instance on 

 record of the strawberry appearing imder such circumstances, in a locality where 

 it was never previously known to have existed. We may well understand the 

 possibility of these occurrences, since seeds, affirmed to have been found in the 

 catacombs of Egypt, have fructified ; and since a material of such delicacy as 

 the mere pollen of a plant will retain its fertiUzing powers for eighteen years— 

 and probably very much longer. This is said of the Chamoerops humilis — the 

 common European palm. The facts are curious ; and as Mr. Edmunds has 

 favoured me with a list of the plants he found under the above conditions — 

 eight in number — I have added them below. 



Hyoscyamus niger. 

 Carduus Marianus. 



