B4 
BOTANICAL NOTES. 
By Dr. Grorcr Vasry, BOTANIST. ° 2 
BRANCHING PALMS.—In the Agricultural Gazette of India for Sep- 
tember, 1872, we notice an interesting account of some singular devia- 
tions from the general law of growth which governs the development of 
endogenous trees. Trees of the temperate zone are almost entirely of 
the exogenous structure, 7. e., they ramify during many years, and in- 
crease in diameter by the annual addition of a layer of woody matter 
external to the preceding ones. In palms, however, the growth is dif- 
ferent; the stem shoots up in one unbroken column, sometimes to an 
immense height, and at the top develops a mass of leaves and sends up 
its flower-spikes, upon which is produced the fruit. 
Such trees rarely or never produce branches, but the article quoted 
below gives interesting details of some of the rare exceptional cases. 
The notes were communicated to the Agricultural and Horticultural 
Society of India: 
i Gave much pleasure in communicating to the society the following notes by Dr. 
Beaumont, descriptive of a unique example of fasciation and branching in a date-palm, 
(Pheniz sylvestris,) with a very instructive sketch of the same by Mr. Daly, in whose 
garden the palm grows. This is a remarkably good sketch of a common date-palm in 
the residency garden, Indore. The trunk is 22 feet high to the lowest branch and 3 
feet 6 ingches in girth at 4 feet from the ground. The branches are twenty-two in num- 
ber; eighteen of them rise vertically, and are so closely packed that it was not possible 
to give a clearer idea of them in the picture. Ihave examined the tree and determined 
that it is really branched, and that the branched appearance is not owing to seeds 
having germinated in the axils of the leaf-stalks. 
I take this opportunity also of noting a few cases of palms which have produced 
branches near Caleutta, and for the knowledge of which I am chiefly indebted to the 
native overseer of this garden, Babu P. G. Sein. 
1. Phenix sylvestris—A large specimen of this palm, near Oolcobariah, had a tall 
erect stem, branching irregularly at a considerable height into seven distinct and well- 
developed heads. This specimen was uprooted and destroyed by the cyclone of 1864. 
A second specimen of this palm at Sookhchur, near Barrackpore, of a smaller size, had 
also six lateral branches overtopped with the main crown. This specimen seems also 
to have been uprooted, by the cyclone. I have accounts of other less numerously 
branched specimens, but I can hear of none of this palm pow existing in the vicinity of 
Calcutta. 
2. Cocos nucifera, (the cocoa-nut tree.)—A most interesting example of branching in 
this palm was illustrated by a large specimen in the garden of Babu Luckinarain Dutt. 
This tree was about 25 feet in height, and had five well-developed fruit-bearing heads. 
It was held in great veneration by the Hindoos, and annually in June, about the time 
of the Moonsha Poojah, flowers, fruit, rice, &c., were scattered around its roots by the 
many Hindoos who visited it. The late Dr. Falconer tried in vain to purchase the 
specimen, and I hear that he sent a native from this garden to measure it carefully, 
but he does not appear to have anywhere recorded these. Asin the case of the date- 
. palms, this specimen was also broken and uprooted by the cyclone of 1864. I have 
just. heard that a two-headed cocoa-nut palm may be seen in the garden of Ghofal 
Babu, at a short distance from the Conaghur Station, on the East India Railway. 
POTENTILLA FRUTICOSA, AGAIN.— We gave in last month’s report a 
letter from Mr. T. 8S. Gold, objecting to the cultivation of the shrubby 
cinquefoil, in apprehension of its becoming a nuisance by spreading, 
through the dispersion of the seeds. We had been acquainted with the 
shrub for many years, and had never known of its disposition to spread 
unduly, and it has been’in cultivation in the grounds of the Department 
here for many years without showing any such tendency. Mr. H.C. 
Beardslee, of Painesville, Ohio, has written to the Department concern- 
ing this shrub, and says: 
I have collected botanical specimens of the plant in Connecticut, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Canada, and 
more recently in Northern Ohio. Ihave met with it often in the more northern regions, 
and never in any locality sufficiently abundant to prove troublesome. Nor have I 
