21- EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



severely from the pest, while he had endured much anxiety and 

 expense in remedial means. 



June 6tk, 1S72. — Scropularia vernalis,'Aceras anthropophora, Le- 

 pidiiim Draba, Statice reticulata, and Saxifrac/a longifolia. — Mr. 

 James Eeid brought fresh plants of the Yellow Figwort, collected 

 in the vicinity of Canterbury, and supposed to be new to the 

 Kentish flora. The Eev. President, Dr. Mitchinson, while cast- 

 ing no doubt on the wildness of the present specimen, remarked 

 that much caution should be used concerning such cases ; for, after 

 having himself found this very species abounding near Peter- 

 borough, he had learned that a botanist had been in the habit of 

 sowing scarce plants in that neighbourhood. Mr. Reid noticed 

 the unusual abundance of the Grreen Man-orchis near Canter- 

 bury during the present season. The Whitlow Pepperwort was 

 described bv Mr. Gulliver as very plentiful in fructification on 

 the West Cliff, at Eamsgate ; whereupon Dr, Mitchinson 

 observed, that it would be interesting to note whether it would 

 maintain its existence there, as many strayed or introduced plants, 

 though flourishing for awhile, sooner or later perished, as he had 

 seen remarkably exemplified in the common Virginia Stock and 

 other plants. Specimens of the Matted Thrift, collected by 

 G-eorge Gulliver, jun., between Dover and Folkestone, were laid 

 on the table. Dr. Mitchinson, having transplanted a young 

 Saxifraga longifoUa from its mountain home in Switzerland to a 

 pot in his own garden at Canterbury, found it flourish and bloom 

 admirably, like so many other members of this genus. 



JPlant Crystals. — Mr. Gulliver, referring to his communication 

 to the Society, September 14th, 1S71, gave extemporaneous 

 demonstrations of the sphseraphides of the two British species of 

 Mercurialis and of Viburnum Lantana, remarking that these are 

 good native plants in which to examine the sphgeraphides, and 

 that they may be found abundantly in our indigenous TJrticaceJe, 

 Chenopodiaceae, and many other orders ; while the willows, pop- 

 lars, and many other trees or shrubs, aflTord plentiful crops of 

 minute crystals of another kind, which are too often incorrectly 

 called rapliides. A slide was shown of Pandanus, from Professor 

 Thiselton Dyer, in which was well seen chains of cells, each cell 

 containing a prismatic crystal, as discovered by Professor Dyer, 

 the chains surrounding the fibro-vascular bundles. Pandanacese 

 is an order long since characterised by raphides ; but the crystals 

 now shown in Professor's Dyer's preparation are of a different 

 form, as described and figured by him in the last vol. of the 

 ' Quart. Journ. Micro. Science.' 



Notes on Ixodes Dugesii. 



Experiments of Dr. Kersey. — This gentleman detailed a series 

 of experiments as to the effect of difl'erent reagents in the 

 destruction of these pests, and had not yet arrived at any very 

 satisfactory result. The usual nostrums called " sheep-dips " 

 were all more or less ineffectual. The mercurial liniment of the 



