TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 119 



it at present ; as also Pinus taurica, which grows in the Crimea. The 

 cultivation of the hardier and more valuable species of these genera 

 was strongly recommended from the results of the experiments of the 

 Duke of Athol, who had found that timber of sufficiently good quality 

 for the ordinary consumption of the navy might be grown at 1-1 40th 

 the expense of oak, taking into consideration the rental of the land, 

 and the ground occupied, besides the vast value given to the land by the 

 fertilizing properties of the larch. The author estimated that 100,000 

 acres of waste, taken from the Grampian hills, for the growth of larch, 

 would, in two generations, not only supply all the ordinary wants of 

 the country, but enable us to export the timber. In the west and 

 south of England the Pinus Laricio and P. Hispanica would proba- 

 bly succeed best ; the cedar of Lebanon might also be tried in these 

 districts. He also recommended the larch to be cultivated by the 

 proprietors of cold clay land in the north of England, as a means of 

 improving the land by the deposition of its spiculae, the trees being 

 kept open for the admission of sheep for fifteen or twenty years, when 

 the trees being gradually thinned, open woodland would be formed, 

 the soil of which would be good. No other species of tree shoidd be 

 mixed, as the larch is recommended merely as a fructifier or amelior- 

 ator of the soil. 



On Lycopodium Lepidophyllum. By G. B. Sowerby, F,L.S. 



Upon instituting a comparison between specimens in his posses- 

 sion and the description and figures of Hooker, in his Icones Planta- 

 rum, t. 162, 163, Mr. Sowerby found them to agree so nearly that he 

 has no doubt tliese specimens helongto Lycopodium lepidophyllum : but 

 there are some points of difference. 



The first point of difference is in the disposition of the stalks, as 

 Hooker calls them, or rather of the stalk as it appears in Mr. Sowerby 's 

 plant ; for Hooker says of his Lycop. lepidophyllum, " caulibus plurimis, 

 caespitosis, stellatim dispositis ;" whereas in Mr. Sowerby 's plant the 

 stalk is spiral and very much branched. 



The next point of difference, and this must indeed be regarded as a 

 very trifling one, is in the form of the stipules, which Hooker describes 

 as " folio subsimilibus ;" whereas in the specimens and in Hooker's 

 figure they appear to be more pointed than the leaves. 



The third and last point of difference is in the form of the fructifying 

 spikes, which Hooker describes in his plant as " acute triquetris ;" while 

 in Mr. Sowerby 's plant they axe four-sided and acute-edged. 



Hooker says, " This plant in South America has long enjoyed such a 

 celebrity, from its remarkable hygrometric property, that specimens 

 form an article of commerce between Mexico and Peru. Like the 

 Anastatica Hierochuntica, or famous Rose of Jericho, in a dried state, 

 the stems and branches are incurved, so that the whole plant forms an 

 elastic ball ; on being moistened, the stems and branches spread out ho- 

 rizontally, and this experiment may be repeatedly performed." 



