216 



Your President then called attention to an interesting specimen of a hy- 

 bridized tree from the garden of Mr. Godsall, of Hereford. Its stock was a yellow 

 Laburnum, which had been budded with a purple one, and for several years 

 produced only the purple flower of a Laburnum ; now, however, besides here 

 and there perfect purple and perfect yellow flowers, appeared a third and distinct 

 kind, the Cytisus, as separate and as perfect as either of the others ; mdeed, the 

 small branch which was shown had all three on it. Mr. Elmes Steele subsequently 

 wrote that Mr. Saunders, of Abergavenny, had a tree in his nursery showing the 

 same facts. Mr. BlashUl also reported a similar case in the nursery of Mr. Mc- 

 Pherson, of Plaistow, Essex. Several speculations as to the cause of this most 

 remarkable fact were hazarded, but it was eventually allowed that the whole 

 was the result of laws purely vital and beyond our scrutiny ; it is curious that in 

 each case the Cytisus blossom was the last, by several years, to appear ; one 

 thing appears proven at all events, namely, the very close afSnity of these several 

 plants to each other. After a brief lecture from the President on seeds, and the 

 essential differences 'twixt the seeds of flowering and the spores of non-flowering 

 plants — the chief distinctions being, that the former possess an embryo ready 

 formed, the latter being formed at the time of germination — the meeting broke up. 



Letters addressed to the President were read, among others from Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, also from Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Lewis, expressive of their regrets 

 at being unable to attend. The former venerable geologist, alluding to his early 

 associations with the locality, and to a recent visit to it with Professor Ramsay, 

 added, " I assure you that I never can visit that wonderful scene too often, and 

 that I infinitely regret being prevented doing so on this occasion." 



The second meeting, on July 21st, was at Ludlow ; " Jupiter was not pro- 

 pitious " — the early part of the day was wet, yet we mustered well, and 22 sat 

 down to dinner. The first rendezvous was Forge Bridge, the entrance on the 

 Downton Silurian district ; here the fine-grained compact Downton Limestone 

 (a capital building stone) exhibits the topmost member of the Silurian system, 

 and therefore the deposit immediately inferior to the " Old Red." Col. Colvin 

 acted as our guide, and conveyed a cordial invitation from Mr. Tarratt to lunch 

 at the Castle, which the Club accepted, though they had to regret the unavoidable 

 absence of Mr. Tarratt. 



The geology of the day is recorded in another place. Among the plants 

 bagged by botanists were Polypodium dryopteris, and Aspidium filix foemina ; 

 Cystopteris fragilis, Cetarach officinarum, and many more common ferns ; the 

 Trifolium arvense. Campanula trachelium, Fedia carinata, were among the Phana- 

 rogamous plants. We dined at Ludlow, after which Mr. Ballard exhibited 

 specimens of wood (of the oak and poplar) illustrating the different results of 

 artificial and natural pruning ; he remarked that long and careful observation 

 convinced him that artificial pruning was an error, for as in these cases the new 

 wood blended imperfectly with the wounded part, leaving either a cavity or a 

 knot, calculated to spoil the timber ; and that such was not the case where pruning 

 was the effect exclusively of a natural process. This led to a discussion on the 

 nature of " adventitious buds," or buds produced otherwise than from the axilla 



