-14- Dr. Hinde on the Microscojnc Structure 



winter, and do not germinate much before the following June. 

 I was able to observe that the beak of the fruit splits up into 

 several strips, and it is at this point that the young plant 

 emerges. The diagrams represent the early state of the two 

 plants as grown together in the same tub. I was much pleased, 

 on first seeing these plants this spring, to see the marked 

 difference in habit, which I venture to think more marked than 

 is frequently found to be the case in two allied Monocotyledons. 

 The difference in habit demonstrated through cultivating these 

 plants, confirmed as it has been by observations ou the two forms 

 in the wild state in various localities, has quite removed the 

 lingering doubt which I had felt as to the propriety of according 

 specific rank to S. necjlectum. The difi'erence is not always quite 

 so strongly marked, or at all events is not so easily observable, 

 as in the examples represented ; and it is essential that the 

 plants be examined in the early state, as later in the season the 

 leaves get trodden down by cattle, blown about, and generally 

 disarranged, so that by the time they are in full flower it is no 

 easy matter to detect this difi'erence in habit. The difference of 

 the tapering of the apex of the leaves, of their colour, texture, &c., 

 some of which characters I have previously spolien of, seem to be 

 very generally characteristic of the two plants ; at the same time 

 ripe fruit is essential to enable the botanist to separate them with 

 certainty ; but this is also the case with not a few other plants, 

 and especially so in the genus Spcuyjanium. 



63. — The Miceoscopic Structure of the so-called Malm or 

 Firestone Rock of Merstham and Godstone, Surrey. 



By George J. Hinde, Ph.D., F.G.S. 



(Read December 8th, 1886.) 



On the southern slope of the well-known escarpment of White 

 Chalk which runs in a generally W.N.W. direction from the coast 

 near Folkestone, through the counties of Kent, Surrey, and 

 Hampshire, there is shown in places a second escarpment, lower 

 than that of the Chalk, and extending a short distance in advance 

 of it. This second escarpment is well exposed between Godstone 

 and Merstham. The rocks of its upper portion belong to the 

 Upper Greensand, and these are underlaid by the Clay of the 

 Gault, which forms the valley between the Chalk and Upper 

 Greensand escarpment, and that of the Lower Greensand on the 

 opposite or Eedhill side of the valley. 



It is my purpose in this paper to describe the microscopic 

 characters of the Upper Greensand Eock of this secondary 



